Aberrations induced by high brightness lasers

The increased brilliance of solid state lasers during the last years creates a new challenge in guiding and forming the laser beam. The thermal lensing can be fixed as the dominating issue. This paper discusses impacts to process results, illustrates common and new possibilities to measure aberrations and identifies possible solutions. A descriptive experiment evaluates the effect of a state of the art optical setup influenced by a high brilliant laser, regarding to changes of the welding depth. The inertial point to improve is determined by the exact timed marked knowledge of aberrations. The implemented solution, based on a wave-front-sensor, is explained in detail. The interaction of the new measurement method with standard results gives a deep view to the behavior of single optical elements. Further investigations deliver the influences of substrate material, substrate clearness and AR-coating. Finally, the connection of multikilowatt single-mode fiber lasers and the new measurement device allows the improvement of optical elements in a new way.