Application of tomographic techniques to the spatial-response mapping of antenna-coupled detectors in the visible

A tomographiclike method based on the inverse radon transform is used to retrieve the irradiance map of a focused laser beam. The results obtained from multiple knife-edge measurements have been processed through a kriging technique. This technique allows us to map both the beam irradiance and the uncertainty associated with the measurement method. The results are compared with those achieved in the standard fitting of two orthogonal knife-edge profiles to a modeled beam. The application of the tomographiclike technique does not require any beam model and produces a higher signal-to-noise ratio than the conventional method. As a consequence, the quality of the estimation of the spatial response map of an antenna-coupled detector in the visible is improved.