Measurement of a Gaussian laser beam diameter through the direct inversion of knife-edge data

Irreversible modification of magnetic properties of Pt/Co/Pt ultrathin films by femtosecond laser pulses

“…Laser pulses of wavelength of 800 nm, duration of 60 fs, and energy in the range of 1.3-4.6 lJ (measured carefully with a power meter working in a single pulse mode) were focused at the sample surface with a lens. Determining the beam radius with the knife-edge method 19,20 showed that the spatial profile of the beam used in our experiment is fitted well with a sum of two Gaussian profiles. 21 The radii of both Gaussian components were equal to: r 1 ¼ (33.8 6 0.5)lm, r 2 ¼ (217 6 21)lm, with a dominant contribution of (98.6 6 0.4)% of the first one.…”

CO2 laser pulse shortening by laser ablation of a metal target

“…The target setup is maintained under vacuum with a chamber pressure of 5 × 10 −6 mbar. The variation of the laser spot size as a function of target position was measured separately using a scanning knife edge technique 15 for accurate estimation of the focused laser spot from which the on-target power density was found.…”

Anisotropic Second- and Third-Order Nonlinear Optical Response from Anisotropy-Controlled Metallic Nanocomposites

“…A picosecond pulsed laser system (PL2143A, 26ps) and an optical parametric generator (PG 401/SH), both from EKSPLA, were used as light sources. These sources were focused with a focal length of 500 mm, where in each case the beam waist was measured by means of the knife's edge method (Khosrofian & Garetz, 1983). The Rayleigh length was calculated to be around 1 cm for all the wavelengths considered, much larger than the thickness of the samples.…”