Laser Beam Profile

Developed by E. Behringer

This set of exercises guides the student to model the results of an experiment to determine the profile of a laser beam using a knife-edge technique. It requires the development of the model of the knife-edge profile, and fitting of the model profile to experimental data. Here, the computational tasks are handled by built-in functions of the computational tool being used to complete these exercises.

Subject Area Waves & Optics
Level Beyond the First Year
Available Implementation Python
Learning Objectives

Students who complete this set of exercises will be able to

  • express an equation predicting the profile of a laser oscillating in the TEM00 mode in terms of dimensionless (“scaled”) variables suitable for coding (Exercise 1);
  • produce both line plots and contour plots of the (scaled) irradiance of the beam versus (scaled) position(s) (Exercises 1 and 2);
  • develop a model of, and plot, the knife-edge profile of the laser beam (Exercise 3); and
  • fit the model, i.e., of the irradiance versus knife-edge position, to experimental data (Exercise 4)
Time to Complete 120 min