Characterizing Lasers that Emit Widely Diverging Radiation

It is often difficult to accurately measure the power emitted from mid- and long-wave IR lasers because their inherently large radiation divergence. This is simply due to the fact that experimental geometry limits the solid angle of the emitted radiation that the sensitive area of a power meter can...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Tober, Richard L
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
ANGLES
EMISSION
GEOMETRY
LASER BEAMS
Lasers and Masers
LIMITATIONS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
POWER METERS
RADIATION
SENSITIVITY
SOLIDS
SURFACES
SYMMETRY
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Summary:It is often difficult to accurately measure the power emitted from mid- and long-wave IR lasers because their inherently large radiation divergence. This is simply due to the fact that experimental geometry limits the solid angle of the emitted radiation that the sensitive area of a power meter can capture. However, one can confidently estimate the total power emerging from a widely diverging laser by integrating the power of an elliptically symmetric Gaussian beam that is incident on the meter's sensitive surface. The original document contains color images.