According to the invention, a thin wire 13 is arranged across the laser beam 2, and the change of resistance in the thin wire 13 is measured by a resistance meter 21 while moving the thin wire 13 by a driving mechanism 23, thereby to measure the power of the laser beam or the position of the laser beam. The apparatus can be used for monitoring the power of laser beam or position of the same used in the high-power laser device for processing or the like purpose. According to the invention, it is possible to monitor the power and position of the laser without interrupting the laser beam and without incurring substantial increase of the loss of power of the laser beam.
A method for measuring the energy of individual laser pulses or a series of laser pulses by reading the output of a piezoelectric (PZ) transducer which has received a known fraction of the total laser pulse beam. An apparatus is disclosed that reduces the incident energy on the PZ transducer by means of a beam splitter placed in the beam of the laser pulses.
A laser power and energy meter has a target surface provided with at least one pin hole for passing a small portion of the laser beam impinging thereon and further has a light detector positioned in the path of the laser light passing through the pin hole. The target surface is moved horizontally and vertically to cause the laser beam to scan the target surface and the center of the laser beam is aligned with the center of the target surface.
The beam power of a laser beam is sampled by locating an elongate radiation conductive path across and substantially normal to the axis of the beam and detecting the light emitted at at least one of the ends of the radiation path, the radiation at the end of the radiation path being representative of the beam power of the laser. The radiation conductive path can be a glass rod but preferably the path comprises one or more optical fibres.
A laser sensor holder apparatus for enabling a power sensor to be held in the path of a laser beam to measure the beams power comprises a base unit including a mounting frame, and translation stages to enable the movement of a sensor mounting plate to a desired position in the path of a laser beam. The apparatus is useful in measuring the power of a laser beam. Applications of the apparatus include its use in direct imaging systems whereby the previous method of manually holding a power sensor in the path of a class 4 laser and all of its inherent disadvantages may be avoided.
A beam monitor for a high-output laser has a beam intensity detection means which detects localized beam intensity in the cross section of a high intensity laser beam, and a characteristic calculation means for calculating the beam characteristics of a laser beam based on the localized beam intensity detected by the beam intensity detection means.
