Gaussian Beam

Laboratory exercise in TFE4160 Electro-optics and lasers

Mats Estensen, Strk Lien & Sigrun Sofie Berg
April 22, 2015

Abstract
In this laboratory exercise a LASER beam was examined by measuring its width as function
of position from two different optical lenses; a regular lens and a microscope objective. The beam
waist (W0 ) and Rayleigh length (z0 ) were found to be: For regular lens: W0 = 0.0239 mm and
z0 = 0.1065 cm. For microscope objective: W0 = 0.001 mm and z0 = 0.0028 cm. From these results
the focal lengths of the two lenses were found to be:
flens = 40 mm
fmicr = 25 mm

Introduction

With the beam central axis along the z-axis

the intensity distribution is

The purpose of this experiment is to carry out

measurements of the width of a LASER (Light
Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) beam, which follows a Gaussian distribution. By measuring with the Knife edge method
we can determine beam waist W0 and Rayleigh
range z0 of the laser beam, and focal length of
the lenses.

2
2.1

"
#
2(x2 + y 2 )
2P
exp
I(x, y, z) =
W 2 (z)
W 2 (z)

(1)

Where P is the power of the beam and W(z)

is the beam width. As earlier stated the intensity ispa Gaussian function of the radial
distance( x2 + y 2 ) at any value of z, and decreases as the distance from the optical axis increases. The intensity has its peak at the beam
center, x = z = y = 0, where the intensity is

Theory
The Gaussian beam

The wave nature of light precludes the possibility of a spatially confined light without angular
spread. But, under ideal conditions, light from
many types of lasers take the form of beams that
are as close as possible to spatially localized and
non-diverging. The wavefront normal still make
an angle with the z axis, but its very small.
These waves are called paraxial waves and are a
combination of a planar wave with a wavefront
normal that coincide with the propagation direction and a spherical wave with wavefront normals diverging in all angular directions. A beam
of paraxial light is called a Gaussian beam. The
Gaussian beam is an important solution of the
paraxial Helmholtz equation and is characterized by a circular symmetric Gaussian intensity
distribution in the transerse plane. [1]

I(0, 0, 0) = I0 =

2P
2P
=
2
W (0)
W0 2

(2)

As the waves in a Gaussian beam are paraxial

W (z) increases with increasing z.
s
 2
z
(3)
W (z) = W0 1 +
z0
W0 is the beam width radius at the beam
waist, where z=0. This is also where the intensity reaches its peak at the beam center axis.
z0 is the Rayleigh range, the distance from the
beam center where I(0,0,z) has reached half the
value of I0 .
By definition the power of the beam inside
the circle formed by W0 contains approximately
86% of the total power of the beam.
1

The beam divergence of an optical beam can

be calculated by a trigonometrical analysis using
the beam width and the Rayleigh range. For
z  z0 the relationship between W (z) and z is
approximately linear and equation 3 becomes
W (z)

W0
z = 0 z
z0

power that is not blocked by the blade is given

by

(4)

where beam divergence 0 can be expressed as

[1]
0 =

W0
,
z0

2)
2 2(x2 +y
W2
dydx
e
2
x=x0 y= W
(10)
When 10% of the total optical power of the
beam is measured the actual beam width can
be calculated from this integral. Setting R=0.1,
x0 = x10 and solving numerically gives this relationship.

Pdetector
R=
=
P

(5)

W 1.5606x10

When a gaussian beam is focused by a lens

placed at the beam waist the transmitted wave
is focused to a new beam waist W00 at a distance
z 0 given by

(11)

The same can be done for R=0.9.

W 1.5606x90

(12)

Combining these two gives

W0
 2
1 + zf0

W00 = r

z0 =
1+

f
 2

(6)

W 0.7803(x10 x90 )

Expressing the distance as a product of velocity and the time it takes for the knife blade to
cover the distance from x1 0 to x9 0, trise gives

(7)

f
z0

W 0.7803 v trise

When the depth of focus of the incident beam

is much longer than the focal length of the lens,
2z0  f . This reduces to [1]
W00

f = 0 f
W0
z0 f

2.2

(13)

(14)

where v is the velocity of the knife blade. [2]

Experimental

(8)

3.1
(9)

Setup and measurement of knife

blade velocity

A knife blade is attached to a DC motor which

revolves such that the knife blade moves at 0.55
mm per revolution. This is shown in Figure 1.
The motor was run such that the knife blade
moved back and forth in x-direction and the
time for each run was measured twice. A 633 nm
(red) laser in continuous wave mode is aligned
in z-direction as shown in Figures 1-2.

Knife edge

The knife edge method is a technique to measure W (z). The method consists of blocking the
beam with a knife blade and withdrawing it at a
constant velocity. The power of the part of the
beam that is not blocked by the blade is then
measured by a detector connected to an oscilloscope. The beam width is then measured by
measuring the time it takes to the power detected by the detector has reached the power of
the beam. Because it is hard to define where
the beam ends, the start and end of the beam is
defined at the point where 10% and 90% of the
beam power is detected. The fraction of optical

3.2

Beam width measurements without lenses

The lens holder for lens 1 was positioned approximately 27 cm along the z-axis from the laser.
The knife blade was moved here and the motor
was turned on. The detector detected the laser
and amplified data was fed to an oscilloscope.
2

4.2

Beam width at lens position

The beam width at the position where the lens

was inserted later was found by measuring trise
at the oscilloscope,which was found to be 1.49
s. Using equation 14, the beam width, Winitial ,
becomes
Winitial = 0.93mm.

4.3

Figure 1: Experimental setup with defined coordinate

system. From left to right: 633 nm laser (out of frame),
lens 1, motorized knife blade, lens 2 and detector.

Beam measurements for regular

lens

Table 1 provides the measured beam width at

different positions, when a lens was inserted at
27 cm.
Table 1: Beam width as function of position when light
is transmitted through a lens. The lens was positioned at
z = 27cm. The beam width was calculated by measuring
trise

Position (z)
[cm]
30.1
31.1
32.1
32.6
33.1
33.6
33.9
34.1
34.6
35.6
36.6
37.6

Figure 2: Experimental setup from alternative angle,

showing laser beam from laser through lenses and into
detector.

3.3

Beam width measurements with

lenses

A lens was inserted in lens holder 1 and lens

holder 2 and the laser was aligned such that the
beam hit the detector, as shown in Figure 2.
Measurements of beam width as a function of
distance from the lens along the z-axis was done
in the same manner as in 3.2, stepwise from near
the lens towards the detector.

trise
[s]
1.150
0.900
0.416
0.220
0.108
0.075
0.220
0.316
0.488
0.810
1.150
1.510

Beam width (W )
[mm]
0.7179
0.5618
0.2597
0.1373
0.0674
0.0468
0.1373
0.1973
0.3046
0.5056
0.7179
0.9426

By curve fitting with the function in equation

3, the parameters W0 and z0 were found to be:
W0 = 0.0239 mm

3.4

z0 = 0.1065 cm

Beam width measurements with

microscope objective

Using equation 8 with the theoretical value

for Winitial = 1.47 mm, the theoretical value for
W0 becomes 0.0089 mm. This indicates a huge
error in the measured W0 .
Figure 3 displays our experimental values of
beam width as a function of relative position the
focal point.
By trigonometrical analysis of the graph presented in figure 3, the angle of divergence, lens ,
was calculated to be

Lens 1 was replaced with a microscope objective

and measurements was carried out as in 3.3.

4
4.1

Results and discussion

Velocity of linear stage

The time which the linear stage used to propagate 1 cm was found to be 11.2 s, by estimating
the linear distance with a ruler. This gives a
velocity of 0.8mm/s.

lens = 1.3 .
3

Table 2: Beam width as function of position when light

is transmitted through a microscope objective. Laser
light source was positioned at z = 0 cm and the objective was positioned at z = 31.0 cm. The beam width was
calculated by measuring trise .

Position (z)
[cm]
31.0
31.1
31.2
31.3
31.5
31.6
31.7
32.0
32.5
33.5
34.5

Figure 3: Beam width as function of position relative

to focal point when focusing the laser beam through a
normal lens

By further trigonometrical analysis and using

the initial beam width calculated above, focal
length of the lens, flens , was found to be
flens =

trise
[s]
0.272
0.212
0.138
0.090
0.009
0.142
0.146
0.312
0.600
1.190
1.850

Beam width (W )
[mm]
0.1698
0.1323
0.0861
0.0562
0.0061
0.0886
0.0911
0.1948
0.3745
0.7428
1.1548

Winitial
= 40 mm.
tan lens

However, the focal length of the lens was given

to be 65mm. Assuming the divergence angle is
correct, the inititial beam width is calculated to
be
Winitial = 1.47mm.
This indicates that the measured Winitial is 37%
smaller than it probably should be.

Beam measurements for microscope objective

Figure 4: Beam width as function of position relative

to focal point when focusing the laser beam through a
microscope objective

The beam width at different distances from the

microscope objective was found with the same
approach as for a regular lens. The microscope
objective was positioned at z = 31 cm (end of
the objective same start position as regular
lens), which Table 2 provides the results. Curve
fitting provided the results

Using the calculated value of Winitial =

1.47 mm gives a focal length of 39 mm, which is
a more reasonable value, as discussed in section
4.5.

4.4

4.5

W0 = 0.001 mm

Sources of error

Few measurement points his could lead to errors

in the curve fit and thus errors final results. As
Figure and 3 4, the data set contains no obvious
potential outliers to the fitted line.
Poor accuracy in z-axis measurements due to
ruler accuracy and systematic errors can be neglected, since the curve fitted line is used for
final results, and the uncertainty is consistent
throughout the measurements.

z0 = 0.0028 cm.
Using the same approach as for the lens the
divergence angle, micr , and focal length, fmicr
were found to be
micr = 2.15 ,
fmicr = 25 mm.
4

References

The calculated values of the focal lengths are

not consistent with the observed values. The observed values (distance between lens/objective
and the position where the beam was at the
thinnest) were 65 mm and 5 mm for the lens
and the microscope objective, respectively.
For the regular lens, the calculated value for
the focal length is shorter than the observed one.
The values for the divergence angle are consistent with those from other groups, which means
that the origin of this aberration is in the measure of the initial beam width (Winitial ), which
was probably found to be too small. A larger
Winitial would give a larger focal length.
For the microscope objective, the calculated
value for the focal length is longer than the observed one. The possible error in Winitial would
in this instance cause an opposite abberation.
However, the observed value, 5 mm was the distance from the end of the microscope objective
to the narrowest point. Without knowing how
the components are arranged inside the objective, it is not possible to obtain a reasonable
value for the focal length just by observing the
distance from the end of the objective to the
position where the beam was at it narrowest.
Considering that the initial beam width probably was found to be too small, the actual focal length of the lens should be longer than the
calculated one. Calculation with the theoretical value for Winitial gave a focal length of 39
mm. Without any more information about the
microscope objective, this could be a reasonable
result, as a typical focal length for a 4x microscope objective is about 45 mm [3].

[1]

Bahaa E A Saleh and Malvin Carl Teich.

Fundamentals of Photonics , 2nd Edition.
1997. isbn: 978-0-471-35832-9.

[2] Gaussian beam - Measuring beam width.

Online PDF. Jan. 2015.
[3] Objective Magnification in Infinity Optical Systems. 2015. url: http://search.
newport . com / ?q = * & x2 = sku & q2 = L - 4X
(visited on 03/18/2015).

Conclusion

By using the Knife edge method to measure a

laser beam the beam width, W0 , was experimentally found to be 0.0239 mm, and the Rayleigh
range, z0 was found to be 0.1065 cm. The focal
length of the lens used was found to be approximately 40 mm. By exchanging the lens with
a microscope lens, the parameters was found to
be W0 = 0.001 mm, z0 = 0.0028 cm and focal
length 25 mm.