An attempt towards quantitative photothermal microscopy

Based on the description of photothermal image formation as a convolution between a defect distribution and the photothermal point spread function, a technique is presented by which subsurface thermal inhomogeneities can be quantitatively reconstructed from photothermal images. Numerical simulations demonstrate the performance and the limits of the suggested approach. Experimental results obtained from a low thermal contrast sample are presented and compared with the theory.