Focusing for laser hole drilling

The power intensity distribution of a laser beam across the focal plane is important for producing good hole geometry. To examine the power intensity distribution in the region of the image plane of a practical lens, a diffraction integral method is employed. Lens aberration is accounted for by the intensity of the appropriate phase changes. In the analysis, a free-running pulsed multimode solid-state laser is considered and the lens is assumed to have aberrations. Since an on-axis object is examined, only spherical aberration is taken into account.