Waveguide beam conditioning for high powered laser

Abstract

A waveguide aperture beam conditioner includes an input port section having an input port that receives an aberrated laser beam, an elongated waveguide body formed from an opaque material and having internal bore formed therethrough, and an output port that receives the waveguided beam and outputs a conditioned output laser beam. An inner surface of the internal bore forms a waveguide for the focused output beam and thereby generates a waveguided beam.

Description

Background technique [0001] High-power lasers are used for cutting, drilling, welding, marking, and engraving of materials. In particular, when the gas medium in the laser is excited by the application of radio frequency (RF) energy between a pair of electrodes, the RF excited gas laser generates laser energy. An example of a gas laser is carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) Laser. [0002] The performance parameters of lasers (especially RF excited gas lasers) can usually be characterized by laser power, power stability and beam mode quality. Each of these performance parameters can be affected by one or more conditions within the laser itself. For example, the changing conditions of the gas in the electrode of the RF excited gas laser can affect the uniformity of the gas discharge in the electrode. This in turn affects M 2 (Read as "M squared") parameter, which is defined as the ratio of the beam parameter product (BPP) of the actual beam to the beam parameter product of the ideal Gaussian...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0006] In some cases, elliptical beams can be corrected by using one or more cylindrical lenses at the output of the laser, but this can add to the astigmatism of the beam

Also, ellipticity may not be controlled consistently between different laser tubes, as each laser's output may have slightly different alignment and / or production assembly tolerances

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