The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 24, 2000
Filed:
Sep. 19, 1996
Michael Arnett, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Robert J Rorden, Los Altos Hills, CA (US);
Gregory Dumond, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Jerzy Orkiszewski, Livermore, CA (US);
David Dewey, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
David Trost, San Francisco, CA (US);
Coherent, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
Typically, a laser emits significant energy after a control signal is generated to disable the power supply. The inherent delay between generation of a control signal for shutting off a laser power supply and actual termination of an output beam pulse in response to the control signal, is compensated in the context that the control signal is generated automatically upon coincidence of measured output beam power with a preset threshold value. Power supplied to a laser is modulated to cause generation of a pulsed laser output beam. The cumulative energy of each output beam pulse is monitored and a feedback signal indicative of measured output beam pulse energy is supplied to the power supply. The feedback signal is compared with a user-selected threshold value, and a control signal is generated for terminating the output beam pulse (by terminating input power to the laser) when the measured output pulse energy reaches the threshold value. By generating the threshold signal to have a value representing a threshold output beam pulse energy that is lower than a desired output beam pulse energy, the threshold signal is generated in a manner which compensates for the inherent delay between generation of the control signal and the actual termination of the output beam pulse in response to the control signal. This prevents delivery of significant output beam energy in excess of a user-selected amount.