White Paper: Understanding Laser Beam Parameters Leads To Better System Performance And Can Save Money

By Coherent, Inc.

Lasers became the first choice of energy source for a steadily increasing number of applications in science, medicine and industry because they deliver light energy in an exceedingly useful form and set of features. A comprehensive analysis of lasers and laser systems goes far beyond the measurement of just output power and pulse energy. The most commonly measured laser beam parameters besides power or energy are beam diameter (or radius), spatial intensity distribution (or profile), divergence and the beam quality factor (or beam parameter product). In many applications, these parameters define success or failure and, therefore, their control and optimization seems to be crucial.

Beam Diameter (Radius, Width)
The beam diameter (generally defined as twice the beam radius, no matter what the particular definition of the beam radius is) is the most important propagation-related attribute of a laser beam. In case of a perfect top-hat (or flat-top) profile the beam diameter is clear but most laser beams have other transverse shapes or profiles (for example, Gaussian) in which case the definition and measurement of the beam diameter is not trivial.

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