Laser beam quality

In laser science, laser beam quality defines aspects of the beam illumination pattern and the merits of a particular laser beam's propagation and transformation properties (space-bandwidth criterion). By observing and recording the beam pattern, for example, one can infer the spatial mode properties of the beam and whether or not the beam is being clipped by an obstruction; By focusing the laser beam with a lens and measuring the minimum spot size, the number of times diffraction limit or focusing quality can be computed.

Laser beam quality studies commenced in the 1960s, following the discovery of the laser.^[1] The M (mode) factor was introduced to experimentally measure the presence of higher-order modes within a Gaussian-like beam. In early 1970, Larry Marshall ^[2] noted, 'Despite variations of intensity cross sections from gaussian shape, it is still convenient to define beam diameter as M times the 1/e^2 diameter of the equivalent gaussian mode'. Anthony E. Siegman significantly advanced this formalism, providing a method that could be measured and used to compare different beams, independent of wavelength.^[3] The factor is now called beam propagation ratio (M²), and it is closely related to the beam parameter product. While the M² factor does not give detail on the spatial characteristics of the beam, it does indicate how close it is to being a fundamental-mode Gaussian beam. It also determines the smallest spot size for the beam, as well as the beam divergence. M² can also give an indication of beam distortions due to, for example, power-induced thermal lensing in the laser gain medium, since it will increase.

There are some limitations to the M² parameter as a simple quality metric. It can be difficult to measure accurately, and factors such as background noise can create large errors in M².^[4] Beams with power well out in the "tails" of the distribution have M² much larger than one would expect. In theory, an idealized tophat laser beam has infinite M², although this is not true of any physically realizable tophat beam. For a pure Bessel beam, one cannot even compute M².^[5]

The definition of "quality" also depends on the application. While a high-quality single-mode Gaussian beam (M² close to unity) is optimum for many applications, for other applications a uniform multimode tophat beam intensity distribution is required. An example is laser surgery.^[6]

Power-in-the-bucket and Strehl ratio are two other attempts to define beam quality. Both these methods use a laser beam profiler to measure how much power is delivered to a given area. There is also no simple conversion between M², power-in-the-bucket, and Strehl ratio.