A Large-Area PVDF Pyroelectric Sensor for CO2 Laser Beam Alignment

We present the design of a large-area (50 mm 50 mm) polyvynilidene fluoride (PVDF) pyroelectric sensor array for industrial CO2( lamda= 10 6 micro m) laser beam positioning. The array dimensions were chosen to match the area typically monitored in the alignment procedure of external optics (beam steering moving arm system, for example) used to redirect the laser beam from the laser output window to a remote working station. The instrument is provided with a tilted, high reflection, ZnSe plate which partially transmits the laser beam onto the sensor array. From positioning simulations with a Gaussian laser intensity profile with a sigma = 3,2 mm standard deviation (equivalent spot size 3sigma = 20 mm), the positional accuracy along the two orthogonal array dimensions was found to be better than 0.02mmf or an 8x8 array and one order of magnitude higher for a 16 16 array. The centroid position of a CO2 industrial laser beam was evaluated by integrating the pyroelectric current for a time comparable to the time duration (100–200 ms) of the laser pulses used in the alignment procedure.