Investigations in CO₂ laser beam caustics measuring techniques

The performance of an industrial laser is very much depending upon the characteristics of the laser beam. The ISO standards 11146 and 11154 which are describing test methods for laser beam parameters have been approved. To implement these methods in industry is difficult and especially for the infrared laser sources, such as the CO₂-laser, the available analysing systems are slow, difficult to apply and are having limited reliability due to the nature of the detection methods. In some RTD projects 3 different laser beam analysing systems dedicated to high power CO₂-lasers have been developed. One of the projects was aiming towards developing a beam analysing system meeting the strict demands of the standards. The other project aimed towards developing built-in detectors for laser cutting systems. In this paper these detecting systems will be described.