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Laser Pointing Stability Measured by an Oblique-incidence Optical Transmittance Difference Technique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2011

J. Gray
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of California, Davis Davis, CA 95616, U.S.A.
P. Thomas
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of California, Davis Davis, CA 95616, U.S.A.
X.D. Zhu
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of California, Davis Davis, CA 95616, U.S.A.
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Abstract

We describe an oblique incidence optical transmittance difference technique for determining the pointing stability of a laser. In this technique, we follow the angular drift a monochromatic laser beam by measuring the relative changes in transmittance through a parallel fused quartz window for s- and p- polarized components of the beam in response to the drift. This method is shown in the present experiment to have the sensitivity to detect angular changes in the range of 1.7 νradians. To demonstrate the technique we measured the angular drifts of two commercially available lasers.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2003

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