The effect of surface tension on the behavior of a laser-induced cavitation bubble is investigated experimentally by means of a fiber-coupled optical beam deflection(OBD)technique.The maximum and minimum bubble radii as well as the oscillation times for the first two oscillation cycle are determined according to the characteristic signals.The experimental results show that the surface-tension forces slow down the bubble growth progress,but speed up the bubble collapse process and shorten the oscillation tim...