Method of programmed displacement for prolong usage of optical elements under the irradiation of intensive laser beams
OwnerMing Lai, Zhimin Qu +1inventors
InventorsMing Lai, Zhimin Qu, Mehrdad Mohebi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention contemplates a programmed displacement to prolong the usage life of UV crystal for deep UV generation by displacing step by step the crystal with interval between steps much shorter than the degradation time of the crystal. Meanwhile, the present invention contemplates the programmed displacement to obtain stable UV generation by avoiding defect locations of the crystal. Further, the present invention contemplates the programmed displacement to achieve optimal stability in UV power for each layer of UV ablation in photo-refractive surgery.
Claims20
A method of programmed displacement for prolong usage of an optical element under the irradiation of an intensive laser beam, comprising the steps of:
- directing said intensive laser beam in a predetermined direction toward and passing through said optical element;
- providing a driving mechanism to displace said optical element with respect to said intensive laser beam;
- providing a microprocessor control unit to control said driving mechanism to move in a step by step fashion;
- providing a monitoring means to monitor the intensity of an output beam from said optical element;
- scanning said optical element to determine initial defect locations of said optical element;
- storing initial defect locations in said microprocessor control unit;
- displacing said optical element step by step over the non-defect area of said optical element with a predetermined short interval between steps;
- and
- repeating said step of displacing said optical element again and again over said non-defect area of said optical element.
An apparatus of programmed displacement for prolong usage of an optical element under the irradiation of an intensive laser beam, comprising:
- said intensive laser beam directed in a predetermined direction toward and passing through said optical element;
- a driving mechanism to displace said optical element with respect to said intensive laser beam;
- a microprocessor control unit to control said driving mechanism to move in a step by step fashion;
- monitoring means to monitor the intensity of an output beam from said optical element;
- wherein said optical element is first scanned to determine initial defect locations of said optical element, said microprocessor control unit then stores said initial defect locations and displaces said optical element step by step over the non-defect area of said optical element with a predetermined short interval between steps, and said microprocessor control unit further repeats said displacement of said optical element again and again over said non-defect area of said optical element.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.