Abstract
Tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) is a valuable method for measuring particle flow velocities in plasma. However, conventional TDLAS using a plane-wave beam is sensitive only to the laser propagation direction. This limitation is particularly unfavorable for the observation of the particle transportation perpendicularly incident on the material in the plasma-material interaction. In this paper, we show for the first time that flow measurements perpendicular to the beam direction are possible by replacing the probe beam with an optical vortex beam. Because an optical vortex has a helical wavefront, particles moving in its field experience an azimuthal Doppler shift in addition to the translational Doppler shift. Assuming a uniform gas flow across the optical vortex, the azimuthal Doppler shift of the absorption spectrum observed in the beam cross-section varies sinusoidally in the azimuthal direction. The transverse flow velocity is derived from the amplitude of this sinusoidal variation. At transverse velocities above 70 m/s, the measurement errors are found to be less than 15%, with a mean absolute percentage error of less than 8%.