title: Reducing the uncertainty in laser beam size measurement with a scanning edge method.
abstract: A modification in the analysis of a conventional laser beam spot size measurement method has been developed. The new analysis significantly decreases the uncertainty in the estimation of the beam-spot size. A conventional beam scanning approach was used in the measurement, but instead of differentiating the data and fitting the result to a Gaussian function, the data were fit to an analytical approximation to the complementary error function. As a result, fitted parameters were obtained that were consistent with the standard differentiation approach, but with considerably smaller uncertainty.
authors.affiliation: J. R. Macdonald Laboratory, Department of Physics, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506-2601, USA.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Veshapidze
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Trachy
authors.forename: M H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Shah
authors.forename: B D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: DePaola