Precision laser beam positioner and spatially resolved laser beam sampling meter

摘要

The meter consists of wire resistors arranged so as to sample the energy in a laser beam at different locations in the beam. Each resistor is part of a bridge which includes three other resistors, a power source, a detector (volt meter) and a display unit which may be a recorder. One of the three additional resistors may be an additional set of wires which are made nearly identical to the set being used to sense the laser beam's position or to determine its intensity distribution. When the wire resistors are exposed to the laser beam the wires are heated, their resistance changes, and the various bridges become unbalanced. The magnitude of the voltage produced in each bridge is proportional to the energy in the laser pulse at the location of each wire.