Experimental study on laser beam diagnostics based on fiber array

A method for direct laser beam diagnostics based on fiber array is introduced. The designing principle and configuration of the method are presented. The experimental results show that it can provide laser power density distribution information with a high spatial resolution better than 3mm and with an error of measurement less than 3%. The theoretical analysis by finite element method(FEM) for laser radiation indicates that this method should be used to measure the high energy laser beam with diameter of several hundred millimeters for tens of seconds. In addition, the results of fiber array technique are compared, qualitatively, with the spatial beam profile obtained by a near infrared charge coupled device(NIR-CCD). These two methods yield consistent results.