Beam quality measurements using digitized laser beam images
- U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Optical Sciences Division, Laser Physics Branch, Washington, DC 20375-5000 (USA)
- Jaycor, Inc., 1608 Spring Hill Road, Vienna, Virginia 22180 (USA)
A method is described for measuring various laser beam characteristics with modest experimental complexity by digital processing of the near and far field images. Gaussian spot sizes, peak intensities, and spatial distributions of the images are easily found. Far field beam focusability is determined by computationally applying apertures of circular of elliptical diameters to the digitized image. Visualization of the magnitude of phase and intensity distortions is accomplished by comparing the 2-D fast Fourier transform of both smoothed and unsmoothed near field data to the actual far field data. The digital processing may be performed on current personal computers to give the experimenter unprecedented capabilities for rapid beam characteriztion at relatively low cost.
- OSTI ID:
- 5295133
- Journal Information:
- Applied Optics; (USA), Vol. 28:21; ISSN 0003-6935
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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