The ISO 11146-1 is a well know standard for measuring the M-Square value of a laser or laser system. The multi-spot method of measuring the M-Square against the ISO 11146-1 standard has not, to date, been measured one to one against this standard using both the traditional scan method and the multi-spot method. This work validates the multi-spot method against the standard by using the identical optical setup and simply changing the software algorithm to accommodate both methods while staying within the ISO 11146-1 parameters. We then compare the results for the same laser within a very short span of time. This work covers the results of three (3) different ISO compliant measurement methods: full caustic multi-spot, scan method of one spot at a time and a smaller number of multi-spots within 3 different Rayleigh ranges of the beam caustic. The multi-spot method has the significant advantage of providing an ISO compliant measurement within a single laser pulse whether it be a femtosecond, picosecond, nanosecond, or millisecond pulse. The traditional scan method can only provide a time averaged measurement and is not possible in making a single pulse M2 measurement. The multi-spot, therefore, provides instant feedback of the laser performance and reduces the optimization time.
Keywords
- Bpp
- Iso 11146-1
- Laser Beam Diagnostics
- Laser Beam Profiling
- M2