In an influential paper Jamshidi-Ghaleh and Mansour[1](Opt. Commun. 234 (2004) 419), have reported on a new method for measuring the nonlinear refractive index of materials using the rotational moiré deflectometry technique. In the cited work, the authors apply the ray matrix theory forfinding the beam deflectionangleontheplaneofthefirst grating in the used geometry. To this end, using the parabolic approximation, the exponential term in the beam irradiance is expanded and retaining thefirst two resultant terms, the nonlinear sample is treated as a thin lens with a position dependent focal length. In this comment, the effective focal length of the nonlinear sample has been rederived in detail using the Gaussian beam theory and it is shown that it must contain a correction factor. The relative error introduced by ignoring this factor can be as large as 73.5–84.4% in determining the nonlinear refractive index of thin samples.

Keywords