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Posted on 2 The base of laser beam diagnostic is to know how much average power you got. Available off the shelves form different manufacturers are three main type of devices, based either on a photodiode, a thermopile or a pyroelectric detector. Of course, many factors will influence the quality of a power meter, the most important being its calibration. One should go for power meters which calibration is traceable to a recognised standard (such as NIST).
Silicon reponse curve This importance of the wavelength dependence leads to two main drawbacks: you need to have a clear idea of the wavelength of your laser, since the power meter will ask you for it and the result will depend on the answer. Plus photodiode power meters are inappropriate for broadband light sources power measurements (for instance it is not the way forward when using femtosecond lasers). On the positive side, photodiodes are relatively insensitive to temperature fluctuations, have a very small form factor, are fast (from a fraction of a second to some tens of microsecond response time, limited by the electronic) and are insensitive to vibrations. But their main and unique
advantage lies in their ability to measure very small optical power. Some manufacturers even offer a background light cancellation feature, which uses a second photodiode placed outside of the laser beam path but close enough to the measuring photodiode. The light measured by this second photodiode is considered as the background noise and subtracted to the reading of the first one.
Unfortunately they are less durable and less accurate than thermopiles or photodiodes. They are also sensitive to vibrations and can't measure continuous light (CW lasers) nor long pulses (it typically has to be less than 10 ms, but this varies a lot from detector to detector). It also has a maximum repetition rate. Therefore they should only be used when the measure of each pulse energy is necessary.