How Do You Measure the Width of a Laser Beam?, PHYS 382

I did a little experiment to measure the profile of a collimated laser beam. Turns out that a laser beam is a lot narrower than it looks. When it hits a wall or other surface, diffuse reflection makes it seem wider than it really is.

Perhaps you don't have access to a CMOS profiler ( e.g. https://www.gentec-eo.com/laser-beam-...) but you still need to know something about your beam, or you want to try the measurement without losing grip on the fundamentals, or maybe you're just a nut-and-bolts type of person. Anyway, this experiment just might be right for you to try.

I found that this experiment is briefly described in Chapter 4 of Experiments in Modern Physics, 2nd Edition, by Melissinos and Napolitano (Academic Press, 2003).

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#optics