Reflection and Refraction of the Laser Light Pulse at the Vacuum-Medium Interface

TL;DR

This paper extends classical reflection and refraction formulas to Gaussian laser pulses at interfaces, explaining experimental observations and proposing modifications to detect reflected pulses.

Contribution

It provides analytic formulas for Gaussian beam reflection and refraction, bridging classical wave theory with laser pulse experiments at interfaces.

Findings

No reflection observed in some experiments explained by Gaussian beam behavior

Derived formulas enable prediction of reflected and refracted pulses for Gaussian beams

Suggestions provided to modify experiments for observing reflected pulses

Abstract

By generalizing the well known results for reflection and refraction of plane waves at the vacuum-medium interface to Gaussian light beams, we obtain analytic formulas for reflection and refraction of the TM and TE laser light pulses. This enables us to give a possible explanation why no reflection was observed in light pulse photographs in some vicinity of the air-resin interface, given in L. Gao, J. Liang, C. Li, and L. V. Wang, Nature 516 (2014) 74-77. We suggest how to modify the experimental setup so as to observe the reflected pulse.