Patent ID: 7961763
Filing Date: 2011-06-14
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
1. A system for compensating for variations in the pulse energy of a Q-switched laser output, wherein said Q-switched laser has an optical pump, the system comprising: a monitor detector for sampling a part of said laser output, determining the pulse energy of said laser based on a sample of the part of said laser output, sampling a part of the output of said optical pump, and determining the optical pump pulse energy based on a sample of the part of the output of said optical pump; a pulse energy comparator circuit which compares the energy of a laser pulse generated by said laser with that of at least one previous laser pulse generated by said laser and compares said optical pump pulse with pulse energy of a known optical pump; a pulse energy trend calculator which utilizes information from said comparator circuit to determine a temporal trend in pulse energy; a pump pulse energy difference calculator which utilizes information from said comparator circuit to determine a change in said optical pump pulse energy relative to said pulse energy of said known optical pump; and a Q-switch delay generator for receiving information from said pulse energy trend calculator and from said pump pulse energy difference calculator, and adjusting the Q-switch delay time such as to reduce a variation in the pulse energy detected in said laser output responsively to the received information.