Abstract

Pulsed UV sources, such as excimer lasers with pulse Intensity and spatial profile variations from shot to shot, provide difficult requirements for an imaging system. We have developed an inexpensive fluorescent imaging system which converts UV to visible and uses the concept of an ordinary videocamera and videocassette recorder (VCR) to record the decay of fluorescence with time. The variability in power from shot to shot and relatively low dynamic range of a videocamera made proper exposure with a single frame very difficult in our laboratory experiments. But we found that the decay time of the fluorescent paint was sufficiently long to allow the VCR to record a high-quality beam image for a single UV pulse via a series of scan frames with a graduated set of exposures, so that the optimum exposure could be selected.

© 1986 Optical Society of America