An alternative approach to determine the spot-size of a multi-mode laser beam and its application to diode laser beams

An alternative approach is suggested to determine the spot-size of a multi-mode laser beam. It has been shown by simulations that the suggested approach can give the beam quality factor and characteristic radius with less than 5% error. Unlike the power content method, the proposed method is applicable to the beams even with diameter one tenth of the CCD size. The new approach has been applied to a multi-mode diode laser output and it is shown that the ABCD matrix analysis can be used for beam propagation, with the measured parameters of the laser.