Product Code: ICA11_1805

Thermal Lensing Measurement of a Thermal Lens Compensation High Power Laser Objective
Authors:
Michael Scaggs, Neoteric Concepts, LLC; Weston FL USA
Gilbert Haas, Haas Laser Technologies, Inc.; Flanders NJ USA
Presented at ICALEO 2011

An effort was under taken to mitigate thermal lensing and have an easy and compact means of monitoring thermal lensing in a high power laser system. Utilizing the negative temperature coefficient refractive index of CaF2 with the nearly opposing positive temperature coefficient refractive index of SiO2, a multi-element focusing objective was fabricated to reduce the amount of thermal lensing experienced with a multi-kilowatt, cw fiber laser. In addition, an all-passive optical design beam analyzer was developed to accurately measure the focus shift of an all SiO2 lens objective in contrast to the CaF2/SiO2 multi-element lens to compare their perspective thermal lensing values.