Compact optical system for pulse-to-pulse laser beam quality measurement and applications in laser machining

Robert W Lambert; Rodolpho Cortés-Martínez; Andrew J Waddle; Jonathan D Shephard; Mohammad R Taghizadeh; Alan H Greenaway; Duncan P Hand

doi:10.1364/ao.43.005037

Compact optical system for pulse-to-pulse laser beam quality measurement and applications in laser machining

Appl Opt. 2004 Sep 10;43(26):5037-46. doi: 10.1364/ao.43.005037.

Authors

Robert W Lambert¹, Rodolpho Cortés-Martínez, Andrew J Waddle, Jonathan D Shephard, Mohammad R Taghizadeh, Alan H Greenaway, Duncan P Hand

Affiliation

¹ School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, Scotland. r.w.lambert@hw.ac.uk

PMID: 15468705
DOI: 10.1364/ao.43.005037

Abstract

Fluctuations in beam quality (M2) have been observed on a pulse-to-pulse basis from an industrial Nd:YAG laser. This was achieved with a compact multiplane imaging method incorporating quadratically distorted diffraction gratings, which enabled simultaneous imaging of nine planes on a single CCD array. With this system, we measured across a range of beam qualities with an associated error (in M2 variation) of the order of 0.7%. Application of the system to fiber-optic beam delivery and laser drilling is demonstrated.