Catalogs

Details on all of our laser measurement instruments.

A laser beam profiler will increase your chance of success anytime you wish to design or apply a laser or when you find your laser system is no longer meeting specifications. You would never think of trying to build a mechanical part without a micrometer. So why attempt to build lasers or laser systems with only a power meter? You will produce the desired results more quickly if you can measure basic things like beam width or size, beam profile and power.

Determining the beam profile at the beam focus of these lasers is critical to verify and improve manufacturing product quality. However, there are enormous challenges that must be overcome to capture the beam profiling data.

When we developed BeamWatch AM, we not only drew diagrams and thought about great features, we also talked to experienced manufacturers of selective laser melting (SLM) machines about issues they needed to address and parameters they were interested in.

Researchers are devising ways of generating and using more complex higher-order multimode formats, such as a TEM03 or TEM33. Some current examples are: telecommunications, analytical instrumentation (LIBS), medicine (endoscopic treatment, drug therapy and activation), multi-source welding, laser scanning, facial recognition, printing, and many more.

BeamWatch AM has been designed specifically for use in the additive manufacturing industry to provide non-interfering real-time beam measurement at the location of the working plane.

When applications call for beam diagnostics in the SWIR spectral range, specifically the 1.5 μm region, there are two practical options available: a phosphor-coated CCD camera or an InGaAs array camera.

Automated measurement of important parameters in the production context improve quality and ensure transparent processes; this also applies to laser welding and cutting.

You may be wondering what to expect when you ask us for a laser beam profiling demo. Here's how it works.

The scientific community is often faced with the requirement of testing, validating, or merely qualifying several laser sources planned for a particular project.

A developer of power-bed additive manufacturing systems needed a beam profiling system that could be used by their field technicians for setup and maintenance of customers’ lasers.

Is it possible to image a UV laser with a Silicon Sensor CCD camera offered by Ophir-Spiricon? The answer is yes, but the direct UV light ablates Silicon CCD chips over time. The ablation is cumulative and depends on the intensity, the wavelength, and the duration of the light on the sensor. The best choice for imaging UV light without damage is to avoid directly imaging the beam on the CCD sensor by using an UV image converter.

Measuring the performance of a laser has possible for a number of years and is accomplished with a variety of techniques. These electronic laser measurement solutions give the laser user more relevant, time-based data that shows trends in laser performance rather than single data points.

BeamGage does have the ability to run multiple instances while connected to the same camera source, which can add benefits such as simultaneous mutually exclusive results. For instance, you can display the Beam Width Major and minor result along with the Beam Width X and Y result, which on one instance of BeamGage is a one or the other limitation.

BeamGage does have the ability to lock out controls and the modification of reported results through the Options Privileges feature.

The use of lasers to perform this heat treating process has become a well-accepted approach. Understanding the beam shape, the uniformity of its intensity, and the cleanliness of the delivery optics all come into play and can significantly affect the efficiency of the approach.

The skills required to understand, troubleshoot, and correct problems with lasers, and the systems they are a part of, are in high demand. It's all part of an evolution whereby yesterday's laser technician has turned into today's laser technology specialist.

Questions like these are common, given the sheer number of parameters Ophir's BeamGage software calculates from each beam profile. When faced with all these various metrics, it's natural to wonder which ones are more important or if one parameter is the best one to describe your laser.

In part 1, we discussed camera technologies that are available for covering various wavelengths. There are similar options for scanning slit profilers.

We are frequently asked how one can output data from the NanoScan to other programs for additional analysis or publication. Depending nature of the desired end results there can be many answers to this question.