Reason #1 To Save Money!

Reason #2 For More Accurate and Reliable Laser Research

Reason #3 For Better Laser Design

So why Spiricon's LBA-100A instead of one of those other guys?

Industrial Applications Of Seeing The Laser Beam 

One of Spiricon's sales representatives recently gave a demonstration of the LBA-100A Advanced Laser Beam Analyzer on an industrial YAG laser. The customer has 10 YAG lasers for cutting and welding. They were getting unacceptable variations in the quality of the trim from two of the machines, and wanted to see if the LBA-100A would help them quantify their beam quality. Following is his report on the demonstration:

"We measured the beam after the point of focus, as it diverges, to an approximate diameter of 1/4". This gave us excellent results. On one laser giving problems we could see a near Gaussian distribution with a clip etch on one side. Even though the beam appeared uniform to them under viewing of an IR viewer, and burn paper showed nearly round patterns, it was obvious with the LBA-100A that there were problems. On a second laser system where they were seeing good cuts, we saw a perfectly uniform, near Gaussian beam".

Most laser engineers and scientists are familiar with beam width, position, divergence angle, Gaussian fit, and such parameters for characterizing a laser beam. M² enables a user to quantitatively evaluate the focusability of the laser beam. It is a measure of how close an actual beam is to a perfect Gaussian single mode beam and is very easy to use in predicting the focused spot properties.

With increasingly sophisticated applications, the demands on the quality of the laser beam have become much greater. Traditional methods of measuring laser beam intensity profile; i.e., burn spots, mode burns, and viewing the reflected beam, are woefully inadequate for assuring the laser quality needed for today's applications. Indeed, lasers are becoming of increasingly high quality. To a large extent this is due to the availability of electronic beam profile instruments. These instruments provide a real time view of the laser beam profile that provides infinitely greater intuition to enable laser optimization. Also, electronic laser beam profilers produce much more accurate quantification of laser beam properties. The accuracy of these measurements enables scientists to fine tune the laser properties to a greater extent than previously possible. New algorithms for laser beam property quantification are discussed, along with the performance improvement of these calculations. In addition, examples are presented of actual situations in which viewing the laser beam has significantly improved its performance.

Laser processing puts increasing demands on beam quality for the process to be cost-competitive. Merely profiling the beam and comparing the profile to a Gaussian fit is no longer adequate, because it does not guarantee a diffraction-limited beam. A 'Gaussian fit' calculation can deceive the user into assuming propagation properties that will not exist in practice. Thus, the Gaussian fit method can lull the user into a false sense of security of laser performance.