Measurements of radiation energy distributions of infrared laser using an interference method

Abstract

Measurement of radiation power and energy distribution may be carried out with the suggested interference method described applied to continuous-wave CO 2 and pulse erbium lasers. This method permits energy and power distributions of pulsed and CW lasers to be measured over a wide spectral range. In this method, a thermal field is produced in the absorbing medium by the laser radiation to be measured and analyzed by an interferometer, so that the interference fringes are obtained which are isolines of laser power (energy) density. Measured in the experiments were CW laser radiation of about 3 W power, 10.6 μm wavelength, and erbium pulse laser radiation, pulse energy 0.02 J, 2.94 μm wavelength. The power distribution profiles were reconstructed from the obtained interferograms.