COL-FXT 50

COL-FXT 250

CO2-FXT

Photon inc.'s collimation and divergence measurement fixtures are based on the ISO Laser Beam Width Standard. This principle teaches that a collimated or diverging beam of light, when passed into a test lens, causes the nearly collimated beam to focus. The collimation angle or divergence is given by the ratio of the beam width at the focal plane of the test lens to the focal length.

This instrument is for nearly collimated paraxial beams. The smallest measured collimation or divergence will be the optimal setting if true smallest collimation angle is desired, as one may compromise collimation between the two orthogonal axes.

The COL-FXT 50 and COL-FXT 250 include an enclosure which holds an adjustable entrance iris, a high quality test lens to focus your collimated or diverging beam and a beam width measuring instrument. Photon inc.'s COL-FXT 50 uses a high quality nominal 50 mm focal length test lens and may be used for either visible sources, (400-950 nm)-VIS or near IR sources (1000-1550 nm)-NIR. COL-FXT 250 uses a nominal 250 mm focal length test lens.

The CO₂-FXT Collimator is a device for measuring the state of collimation of CO₂ laser beams. The fixture includes a mounting pin for Photon's XYFIR/M pyro-electric scanhead and a high quality, 28 mm diameter ZnSe lens with a focal length of 190.6 mm. The fixture includes a removable light shield to protect the working environment from light reflections. The CO₂-FXT Collimator can measure collimated beams up to 18.5 mm in diameter.

For packages devices, Photon can provide an optional complete collimation divergence tester that allows the user to easily mount the device to be collimated, adjust collimation optic and cement the optic once adjusted. Call for more details.

BeamScan Collimation Software sold separately

A Case Study Example:
Pictured below is a Laser Diode assembly tool used for collimation of a laser diode. This LD is used in an interferometer application. Extremely high quality collimation (low angular spread) is required to achieve high contrast fringes. Interferometery is probably one of the most sensitive applications for the LD collimator. Before the production of this LD assembly and test fixture, it could take up to 4-6 hours to properly adjust the interferometer for high contrast fringes. With this fixture, 4 hours dropped to 4-5 minutes, with most of the time spent waiting for the epoxy to set!

This means 2,250 LD collimation assemblies can be built in one man-week, resulting in savings of 11,212 hours for 2,250 assemblies. If your burdened manufacturing cost is $50 per hour, this instrument saves $560,600 per 2,250 assemblies. Return on the investment is less than one day by use of this application.

Specifications:

Assumes a low noise source–a few hundred microwatts of power.