The measurement of beam propagation parameters is essential for the wide ranging use of lasers in industry, medicine and academia. Commercially available devices to measure laser parameters such as M2 beam propagation ratio, divergence, Rayleigh distance and waist diameter are often slow, cumbersome and difficult to align.
In this system a liquid lens, which can vary its optical power in response to a changing input voltage, is used to remove the need for the translation stage used in traditional systems to allow beam widths to be sampled through the laser beam caustic. This makes the BQM-50 one of the most compact and capable beam quality systems available. This system was developed in conjunction with NPL and is protected by an NPL patent.
The clear, simple to use software gives total control over the measurement which can be aligned and completed in a few minutes. Measurement time is less than 20 seconds.
This partnership came about through NPL Technology Applied - a co-branding scheme for instrumentation and software technology developed by NPL and incorporated into commercial products.