Mosaic quantification by birefringence measurement
AssigneeCorning Incorporated
InventorsWilliam Rogers Rosch, Horst Schreiber
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A crystal optical material is illuminated at a wavelength of light that does not ionize the crystal optical material. Birefringence is measured between a plurality of voxels within the crystal optical material having spatial dimensions small enough to distinguish optical propagations of the light encountering boundary regions between subgrains of the crystal mosaic from optical propagations of the light through the subgrains themselves. The measured birefringence is evaluated for quantifying a characteristic of the crystal matrix. Metrics describing the crystal matrix are associated with performance of the crystal optical material.
Claims28
A method of estimating service life of a crystal optical material having a lattice mosaic of imperfectly aligned subgrains comprising steps of:
- measuring birefringence within the crystal optical material at a spatial resolution discerning discontinuities between subgrains within the mosaic,
- characterizing birefringence variations among the measurements according to a metric, and
- applying the metric as an estimate of a service life of the crystal optical material.
A method of quantifying a crystal mosaic as a measure of material quality comprising steps of:
- illuminating a crystal optical material at a wavelength of light that does not ionize the crystal optical material,
- collecting the light from a plurality of voxels within the crystal optical material having spatial dimensions small enough to distinguish optical propagations of the light encountering boundary regions between subgrains of the crystal mosaic from optical propagations of the light through the subgrains themselves,
- measuring the birefringence exhibited by the plurality of voxels, and
- evaluating birefringence variations among the plurality of voxels for quantifying a characteristic of the crystal matrix.
A method of predicting performance of a crystal optical samples comprising steps of
- measuring birefringence within a plurality of the crystal optical samples at a resolution that discerns discontinuities between subgrains within the crystal optical samples,
- characterizing birefringence variations within the crystal optical samples in accordance with a metric,
- measuring a performance characteristic of the crystal optical samples, and
- correlating values of the metric with the measured performance characteristics of the crystal optical samples for predicting the performance of other crystal optical samples having similar metric values.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.