Here’s a surprising statistic: Nine out of ten laser technicians have no idea what M² is.
Most laser beam characteristics are easy to put your finger on: laser beam width, position and divergence angle are generally known to those that work with lasers – and if not, can be learned quickly.
We’ve all been there before.
You just want to measure the laser power with a simple power meter, but before you write down the reading, you notice it’s changed. You take a closer look and see that it’s changing continuously.
So you need to profile your laser beam but are worried about the cost of a beam profiler? Or maybe you just think it will be too complex for your technicians?
BeamTrack is a laser power sensor that also measures beam size (PPS version only) and position (all versions).
My question: Can you use BeamTrack as an alternative to a full laser beam profiler?
Sort of.
It really depends on what you need to measure.
Finding the mechanical location of your laser beam can be important in some applications.
Using a NanoScan (Scanning Slit Beam Profiling) you can find a mechanical location of the center of your beam by following these steps:
If you read our last blog post in the series, now you probably wondering – ‘How can I connect my EA-1 (Ophir’s Ethernet adopter) to StarLab laser measurement software?’
Well, not to worry – we’ve got that covered for you:
Choosing the best laser sensor for a particular application can be quite overwhelming.
Ophir has so many sensors! Which is the best one for measuring your laser beam?
The choice actually depends on many parameters. The Ophir Sensor Finder does most of the thinking for you, and helps you choose the right sensor for your application. This video shows you how to use it:
So, as we’ve started discussing the best way to pick a power meter last week, we’ve reached the third piece of data we need – and that is the laser wavelength. Why is it so important? In order to match it to the sensor absorber characteristics.
We need to select a sensor whose wavelength is within the measurement range of the sensor, power rating is equal to or higher than the maximum power we will measure, whose aperture is larger than the laser beam diameter so that it will contain the whole beam, and whose damage threshold is higher than the maximum expected laser power density at the given wavelength. The sensor absorber should be selected so it matches the wavelength for higher absorption.
Measuring optical power and energy depends on an understanding of the types of sensors and instruments available, and on requirements such as wavelength response, dynamic range, damage threshold, and maximum repetition rate.
Power and energy meters measure the output of an optical source. They are a necessity in a wide variety of applications in the lab, on the production floor, or in the field, whether the emission is from low-light sources, such as fluorescence, or from high-energy pulsed lasers.
No doubt that the need to accurately measure laser power and energy has increased as more of these systems are used in medical procedures and industrial processes.
Although a fairly simple process, this measurement is not as straightforward as an electric power measurement.
With lasers, more attention must be paid to the selection of the right sensor as different sensors perform different measurements.
Selecting the wrong sensor can result in inability to measure well or can even destroy the sensor.
If you’re involved with pulsed lasers, doing research, system design, process control, final test, or field service, you are going to want to accurately measure your laser power.
The more you know about the measurement process, the better the results.
However, most pulsed laser power meters display the total energy of a pulse or alternatively the average power, not the peak power.
As an Ophir customer you have the ability to measure the peak power of a pulsed laser beam using Ophir laser measurement equipment.
3 Watts.
Just kidding, obviously this is going to be your favorite answer: “It depends.”
And it doesn’t just depend on the type of sensor you have or the specs of that sensor.
