© 2011 Thorlabs
48 Thorlabs Beam 4.0
3.4
Measurement with the Beam Profiler
General guidelines for operating the Camera Beam Profiler BC106
You should follow these basic guidelines to achieve correct and reliable
measurement results.
1. Provide stable Mounting to the Beam Profiler using the appropriated
threads on its base plate.
2. Ensure to operate the instrument within the allowed Power Range of the
instrument.
3. Choose a neutral density (ND) filter out of the Filter wheel which is suited for
the operating wavelength (UV / VIS) of your light source.
4. Select a filter attenuation which is adapted to the applied laser power.
5. Align the beam to be measured perpendicular to the front face of the BC106
Camera Beam Profiler.
6. Minimize ambient light entering the Beam Profiler aperture, use a high loss
ND filter for its attenuation.
7. Perform a Ambient Light Correction in case of weak light sources
compared to the ambient power level.
Attention
Do not stick anything into the Beam Profiler aperture, you may damage the
windowless image sensor chip!
Prevent dust or other contaminations from entering the aperture!
Keep beam power below the allowed limit, otherwise you may damage the
instrument!
For accurate power measurements you should:
1. Enter the correct operating wavelength.
2. Enter the chosen ND filter loss.
3. Perform a User Power Calibration to achieve best power accuracy.
Performance Optimization
As soon as a BC106 device is selected within the 'Device Selection' panel the
measurement starts in the continuous mode. It may be advantageous to stop the
continuous measurement for a detailed analysis of a beam profile captured with the
last camera image. Also, user interactions with the GUI will work more fluently when
the continuous flow of image data is stopped.
Measurement speed of the Camera Beam Profiler is depending on various device
settings like Fast/Precision mode, image resolution (ROI) and the selected exposure
time. Also the number of open child windows used to visualize the measured results
and the number of activated numerical parameters to be calculated may reduce the
available measurement speed, depending on the performance of your PC.
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