Laser Beam Diagnostics: FireWire Beam Pro

The FireWire BeamPro is a camera-based beam profiling system that provides highly accurate NIST-traceable measurements of ISO Standard beam profile parameters, including beam diameter, centroid, and power/energy, with enhanced ease of use and portability.

The FireWire BeamPro CCD camera is available in a 2/3" format with 6.7µm pixels, a 1/2" format with 8.3µm pixels or a 1:1.8 format with smaller 4.6µm pixels all with a small form factor that allows easy placement into typical optical paths. The CCD is sensitive from 190nm to 1100nm wavelengths, but operation below 250nm is not recommended due to the likelihood of damage to the array. See the UView attachment for safe measurement of short UV wavelengths.

Photon also provides a full range of optics to measure both small and large beams. There are beam expanders to magnify smaller beams and reducers to fit larger beams onto the camera arrays.

The standard configuration is supplied with a glass OD 2.8 C-mount filter for wavelengths >360nm, while the camera can be equipped with a wavelength-specific (e.g., 355nm or 266nm) fused silica high power reflective filter with ~99.5% reflectivity (similar to OD 2.8). This instrument provides a high level of portability for beam profiling, since a peripheral frame grabber card is not required for this system. Thus, this equipment can be easily transferred to different laptop or desktop computers without the additional step of installing a frame grabber card.

For laser beam profiling applications involving moderately sized beams with wavelengths from around 250nm to 1100nm, the silicon array is an excellent solution. With any camera array based profiler it will be necessary to attenuate the laser beam to prevent saturation of or damage to the sensor. It is important that the attenuation be done properly to ensure that errors are not introduced to the measurements.

The FireWire BeamPro Software is written specifically for Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and takes full advantage of the menu driven, multi-windowing environment. The software performs rigorous data analyses in accordance with the ISO standards, providing quantitative measurement of numerous beam spatial characteristics. Pass/Fail limit analysis for each of these parameters can be also applied. For data display and visualization, the user can arrange and size multiple windows as required:

• Video Dual Aperture Profiles
• Beam Statistics
• 3D Profile View
• 2D Topographic View
• Up to 15 Time Statistics Charts
• Pointing/Targeting
• M2 Interactive Wizard
• Notes

Custom configured instrument screens with multiple views can be saved as configuration files for repeated use.

Data can be exported to spreadsheets, math and statistical analysis programs and process/instrumentation control programs by logging to files or COM ports, or by sharing using ActiveX Automation.

To avoid having to deal with attenuation issues, it may be preferable to use a slit-based profiler for your laser measurements.

UView Accessory
The UView Accessory attaches to standard Photon Inc. Firewire Model 2512 and 2523 and USBeamPro Model 2323 Cameras.