Influence of beam radii on a common-path compensation method for laser beam drifts in laser collimation systems

Abstract

The laser beam drift is a main factor that influences laser collimation measurement accuracies. In such measurements, the common-path compensation method is an efficient way to eliminate errors which are normally produced by the laser beam drift. Based on our current common-path compensation system, compensations for the laser beam drift were studied by different laser beam radii and detectors. The measurements have shown that the compensation effect for 3 mm beam radius is better than the ones of 1.5 mm and 4.0 mm beam radii. Based on this, the ratio between the 3 mm beam radius and the total area of the quadrant detector, which is 36%, has indicated the best compensation effect.