Beam profile monitor for pulsed CO/sub 2/-laser

Commercial beam profile monitors for pulsed CO/sub 2/ lasers (10.6 /spl mu/m wavelength) are expensive and suffer from a low damage threshold. To overcome these problems, a robust detector with a high damage threshold was developed. The detector is made of a special type of graphite which is evaporated during the interaction with the laser beam. A plasma is formed which radiates visible light. Using a conventional fast shutter imaging system, this plasma light directly shows the spatial intensity distribution of the laser beam. The detector works in the power range of 10/sup 5/-10/sup 7/ W/cm/sup 2/.