Patent ID: 8410422

Claim:
A method for acquiring and adjusting characteristics of a high-energy beam bundle, comprising: forming the beam bundle by a collector optics for directing a convergent beam bundle along an optical axis into a focus and providing a symmetrical and homogeneous beam bundle along the optical axis in a far-field plane after the focus; defining an exit aperture associated with the focus which restricts an area for the acquisition of characteristics of the beam bundle to a section of the beam bundle before the exit aperture; acquiring an intensity distribution of the radiation over a cross section of the convergent beam bundle in a measuring plane perpendicular to the optical axis before the exit aperture; recording intensity values for a plurality of reception regions of a measuring device, wherein the reception regions are aligned with different radii concentric to the optical axis; assigning the reception regions to a coordinate system having its coordinate origin disposed along the optical axis and defining a plurality of sectors in the measuring plane by coordinate axes of the coordinate system; comparing the intensity values of two respective different reception regions selected in the measuring plane for different measuring positions with respect to the coordinate system; generating measured quantities based on a plurality of intensity value comparisons with respect to the coordinate system defined in the measuring plane; converting the measured quantities into control variables for adjusting devices of collector optics; and aligning the collector optics based on the determined control variables.