Apparatus and method for aligning light beams

1. Apparatus for the alignment of a visible optical beam comprising:

a visible optical beam;

a beam splitter downstream of the visible optical beam;

wherein the beam splitter is constructed and arranged to split the visible optical beam into two unequal visible sub-beams forming first and second optical paths;

the first optical path being downstream from the beam splitter, the first optical path including a first concave lens downstream from the beam splitter, a first convex lens downstream from the first concave lens, and a first screen downstream from the first convex lens

for amplification of lateral shift alignment;

the second optical path being downstream from the beam splitter, the second optical path including a second convex lens downstream from the beam splitter, a second concave lens downstream from the second convex lens, and a second screen downstream from the second concave lens

for amplification of angular shift alignment;

wherein the amplification of the first and the second sub-beams are unequal and,

wherein the first and the second sub-beams impinge on the first and the second screens.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the first and the second sub-beams are independent light beam paths.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising at least one beam position detector operatively associated with each of the first and second screens.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the at least one beam position detector measures the light impinging on the at least one beam position detector.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the beam splitter, the first and second concave lenses and the first and second convex lenses and the first and second screens are mounted in a unitary housing.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the unitary housing further comprises at least one opening in the housing to receive the visible optical beam.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the visible optical beam is a visible laser beam.

8. A method of the aligning two optical beams comprising:

providing an invisible optical beam;

providing the apparatus according to claim 1 for receiving the visible optical beam;

providing a beam splitter in the path of the visible optical beam;

the beam splitter splitting the visible optical beam into at least two unequal visible sub beams paths;

directing the first one of the two visible sub-beams first through the concave lens and second through the convex lens and third to the first screen for amplification of lateral shift alignment;

directing the second one of the two visible sub-beams first through the convex lens and second through the concave lens and third to the second screen for amplification of angular shift alignment;

wherein the amplification of the first and the second sub-beams are unequal;

impinging and aligning the first and the second visible sub-beams on the first and the second screens; and

based on the alignment of the first and the second visible sub-beams on the first and second screens, aligning the invisible beam to the first and the second visible sub-beams.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the invisible beam is an optical beam produced by a CO 2 laser source.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the splitting the visible optical beam into two unequal visible sub-beams is such that the fluences of the sub-beams impinging on the first and second screens are approximately equal.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the split of the visible optical beam into two unequal sub-beams is such that the fluences of the sub-beams impinging on the first and second screens are approximately equal.