Proceedings Article | 20 February 2014
Proc. SPIE. 8963, High-Power Laser Materials Processing: Lasers, Beam Delivery, Diagnostics, and Applications III
KEYWORDS: Cameras, Metals, High power lasers, Laser applications, Laser beam propagation, Optical testing, Laser cutting, Laser optics, Pulsed laser operation, Beam analyzers
In various modern scientific and industrial laser applications, beam-shaping optics manipulates the laser spot size and its intensity distribution. However the designed laser spot frequently deviates from the design goal due to real life imperfections and effects, such as: input laser distortions, optical distortion, heating, overall instabilities, and non-linear effects. Lasers provide the ability to accurately deliver large amounts of energy to a target area with very high accuracy. Thus monitoring beam size power and beam location is of high importance for high quality results and repeatability. Depending on the combination of wavelength, beam size and pulse duration , laser energy is absorbed by the material surface, yielding into processes such as cutting, welding, surface treatment, brazing and many other applications. This article will cover the aspect of laser beam measurements, especially at the focal point where it matters the most. A brief introduction to the material processing interactions will be covered, followed by fundamentals of laser beam propagation, novel measurement techniques, actual measurement and brief conclusions.
