Abstract

Radiation from a pulsed Nd:YAG laser (wavelength 0.532μm) was used to investigate the effect of size and refractive index of liquid spherical aerosols on the breakdown threshold. The threshold breakdown intensity decreases with increasing droplet size; in most cases, however, no simple general dependence on refractive index has been found. Thus, the size and the refractive index are not sufficient to determine the breakdown threshold and other physical and chemical properties of aerosols have to be considered.

© 1986 Optical Society of America