Signal analysis and characterization of experimental setup for the transient thermoreflectance technique

The transient thermoreflectance (TTR) technique is a powerful optical pump-probe technique often used to measure thermal properties and monitor ultrafast processes. The technique has been used to measure a range of properties including the thermal conductivities of thin films and electron-phonon coupling factors to mention a few. TTR measurements are sensitive to residual heating and misalignment, which can lead to erroneous analysis of TTR data. To minimize these errors, we have developed a simple phase correction technique to reduce errors associated with residual heating and other background noise. Besides its simple implementation, the technique also requires no previous knowledge of the transient reflectance response. The technique is verified with simulated experimental data. The importance of proper alignment of the pump and probe beams over the entire range of pump-probe time delays of interest is discussed, along with a means of quantifying error associated with misalignment. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.