Infrared Machine Vision Laser Line with a fan angle and uniform intensity distribution

The laser diode beam sources series 13LR/13LRM and 13LN/13LNM produce laser lines with a fan angle and approx. uniform intensity distribution along the laser line. 

13LR vs. 13LN
The lasers of series 13LR produce laser lines with a fixed fan angle of 12°, 25° or 40° with a constant line width and approx. uniform intensity distribution along the laser line. The fine-structure is a chain of equidistant dots with a spacing of approx. the line width. The line width is constant along the laser line. Across the laser line the intensity distribution is Gaussian for lasers of series 13LR and approx. Gaussian for lasers of Series 13LRM.

The lasers of series 13LN/13LNM produce laser lines with a small fan angle between 0° and 16.8° and approx. uniform intensity distribution along the laser line. More precisely, it is Gaussian clipped by an aperture with an edge intensity of typ. 80%. Across the laser line the intensity distribution is Gaussian for the series 13LN and approx. Gaussian for the series 13LNM. For series 13LN the line width is constant along 60% of the central area, outside this area the line width differs up to 30%.

Micro and Macro lasers
The lasers of series 13LR and 13LN  are Laser Micro Line Generators designed to produce lines with small line width. They have a small depth of focus (in this case the depth of focus is the Rayleigh range). Laser Macro Line Generators like the corresponding lasers of series 13LRM and 13LNM have common basic optical features but are designed to generate laser lines with an extended depth of focus.

Electronics
The lasers have integrated electronics for control of the laser output power. The output power can be controlled using the modulation input ports (TTL and analog) or manually using the potentiometer. Optionally the lasers can be equipped with RS232 serial interface for laser control and data read-out.

Adjusting the working distance
For lasers of series 13LR/13LRM the working distance can be adjusted by adjusting the focus setting. Please note that beam parameters like line length and line width increase proportionally to the working distance. Additionally a fine-adjustment of the distance between laser and target is recommended for fine-focusing and minimal line width.

For lasers of series 13LN the working distance is fixed. A fine-adjustment of the distance between laser and target is recommended for fine-focusing in order to achieve minimal line width.

Optional: Low Noise Version
The laser series 13LN/13LNM is also available as a Low Noise version LNC-13LN (Micro) and LNC-13LNM (Macro). These lasers are low noise (typ. < 0.15% of Po (RMS, Bandwidth < 1 MHz)) and operate mode-hopping free. Due to the reduced coherence length the speckle contrast is lowered. However this effect is smaller for smaller lines. (P_o is the maximum specified output power.)

These high quality lasers can e.g. be used for machine vision applications, laser triangulation or laser light sectioning.