Abstract

A method permitting direct measurement of the spatial variance along a given transverse direction of any laser beam is described. The procedure relies on the use of a transmission filter whose local transmissivity varies spatially as an inverted parabola. The variance and the first moment of a transverse beam intensity distribution are readily obtained simply by measurement of the maximum power transmitted through the filter as this filter is moved across the beam’s section.

© 1994 Optical Society of America

Moment definition of the pointing stability of a laser beam

Michel Morin, Pierre Bernard, and Pierre Galarneau
Opt. Lett. 19(18) 1379-1381 (1994)

Direct measurement of prepulse suppression by use of a plasma shutter

D. M. Gold
Opt. Lett. 19(23) 2006-2008 (1994)

Measurement of all ten second-order moments of an astigmatic beam by the use of rotating simple astigmatic (anamorphic) optics

G. Nemes and A. E. Siegman
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 11(8) 2257-2264 (1994)

Suppression of beam breakup in self-mode-locked Ti:sapphire lasers

J.-F. Cormier, M. Piché, and F. Salin
Opt. Lett. 19(16) 1225-1227 (1994)

High-order harmonic generation with an annular laser beam

J. Peatross, J. L. Chaloupka, and D. D. Meyerhofer
Opt. Lett. 19(13) 942-944 (1994)