Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Laser-beam profilers

Nature Photonics volume 1, pages 481–482 (2007)Cite this article

Knowledge of a laser beam's shape and output-power distribution is critical for optimizing laser performance. Neil Savage summarizes the latest beam-profiling products on the market.

People using lasers to cut and weld material, send signals through optical fibre, reshape human corneas to improve vision as well as many other tasks, can all benefit from having detailed knowledge of the shape of their laser beams and how the intensity of light varies across them. The tool that makes this possible is the beam profiler, which captures a two-dimensional plot of the intensity of a laser beam. Although many people might imagine that the power density of a laser beam is the same at any point across the width of the beam, often that is not the case, with most single-mode lasers having a gaussian profile. In many applications users need to know about undesirable variations from the optimum profile and correct for them.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neil Savage is a freelance science and technology journalist based in Lowell, Massachusetts, USA

    Neil Savage

Authors
  1. Neil Savage
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Savage, N. Laser-beam profilers. Nature Photon 1, 481–482 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2007.143

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2007.143

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing