Abstract

The propagation properties and beam quality factors for any general astigmatic, multimode, partially coherent laser beam can be fully characterized in second order by a real, symmetric, positive definite matrix having at most ten independent parameters. Orthogonal (simple astigmatic) or rotationally symmetric (stigmatic) beams have seven or three independent parameters, respectively. A method is proposed for determining all ten beam parameters by measuring only the second-order moments of the beam intensity distribution in a single transversal plane after the beam is passed through a simple rotating optical system. Several particularly simple systems involving only one or two rotating cylindrical lenses and a single CCD camera are proposed and their properties are discussed. This work was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

© 1993 Optical Society of America