LBS-300s Compact, Portable Laser Beam Splitter

MKS Instruments Inc. has announced the Ophir LBS-300s, a compact, portable laser beam splitter for handling small beam diameters and a wide range of powers. The LBS-300s measures laser beams with diameters up to 15mm and powers from 10mW to 400W. It is designed with a shorter distance from the input surface to the camera array to accommodate finding focus spots with shorter working distances. This makes the LBS-300s ideal for enclosed workstations, such as micromachining, microwelding and medical device manufacturing.

"Reduction of the laser power before reaching the camera is often times required to obtain a usable signal, one that is not saturating or damaging the camera," stated Gary Wagner, general manager, Ophir Photonics (U.S.). "The LBS-300s beam splitter reduces laser power by first sampling the beam two times, and then absorbing the beam with combinations of optical density filters. It measures high powers and small spots with the added benefit of a portable form factor that can easily be moved from one camera to the next."

The LBS-300s allows users to control and adjust laser beam output power reaching the camera. Approximately 99 percent of the beam is transmitted through each beam sampler with 0.01 percent passed on to the camera. The beam sampler provides a beam image that is polarization corrected to restore the polarization components of the original beam.

The LBS-300s beam splitter attaches to C-mount, CS-mount, or Ophir mount cameras. A set of adjustable ND filters are provided for final intensity adjustments before the beam reaches the camera imager.