Research on 10.6 mu m laser beam monitoring in CO2 laser processing system - art. no. 683521

It is a key point of CO2 laser beam monitoring in the CO2 laser processing system to achieve alignment between CO2 laser and PL (pointing and launching, system, By monitoring the angle offset of CO2 laser beam, the compensation can be gotten witch is given to fast-steering mirror to rectify the direction of laser beam. But the normal photoelectric detector can not get the laser signal because of CO2 laser's high energy and long wavelength. Its wavelength is 10.6 mu m and its power can reach kW level. Consequently, it is difficult to detect the high-energy 10.6 mu m laser beam directly. So, we monitored the Output mirror of laser resonator superseded the laser beam, indirectly. The laser beam monitoring system could be designed based on CCD laser auto-collimation angular measurement principle and image processing method. In this paper, application of CCD laser auto-collimation angular measurement principle and image processing method for CO2 laser beam monitoring system is introduced particularly, After design, fabrication and alignment, the monitoring system can be used for experimental study that including angular measurement accuracy and angle offset measurement of CO2 laser beam. Angle offset range and angle variation rule of CO2 laser beam is also can be acquired for further research.