Beam profile monitor for pulsed CO2-laser

Commercial beam profile monitors for pulsed CO₂ lasers (10.6 μm wavelength) are expensive and suffer from a low damage threshold. To overcome these problems, a robust detector with a high damage threshold was developed. The detector is made of a special type of graphite which is evaporated during the interaction with the laser beam. A plasma is formed which radiates visible light. Using a conventional fast shutter imaging system, this plasma light directly shows the spatial intensity distribution of the laser beam. The detector works in the power range of 10⁵-10⁷ W/cm²