Photon Counting Temperature Measurements During Pulsed Laser Heating of Al2O3-TiC Ceramics

Abstract

This work investigates photon-counting measurements during pulsed laser heating of an Al2O3-TiC substrate. The excitation source is a Nd:YAG laser operating at a fundamental wavelength of 1064 nm. The laser fluence is varied in the range from 0.272 J/cm2 to 0.839 J/cm2. The emission spectra, captured by single photon counting, are related to temperature by Planck’s distribution. The suitability of this method is discussed. Pulse exposure, the number of pulses that a given surface location receives, is found to be a vitally important parameter. Numerical simulations of transient heat conduction support the results of high pulse exposure measurements. Low pulse exposure experiments exhibit higher temperatures due to chemical reactions at the surface and grain boundary effects.