There were known to be huge (65%) heating beam power losses on the SRM AWC table, somewhere between the CO2 laser and the test optic. Today I profiled the setup with a power meter, looking for the dominant source of losses. It turned out to be a 10" focusing lens which had the incorrect coating for 10.2 microns. I swapped this lens with a known ZnSe 10" FL lens (Laser Research Optics LX-15A0-Z-ET6.0) and confirmed the power transmittance to be >99%, as spec'd. There is now ~310 mW maximum reaching the test optic, meaning that the table losses are now only 10%.

Using a single-axis micrometer stage I also made an occlusion measurement of the heating beam radius just in front of the test optic. I moved the 10" focusing lens back three inches away from the test optic to slightly enlarge the beam size. In this position, I measure a beam radius of 3.5+/-0.25 mm at 1.5" in front of the test optic (the closest I can place the power meter). The test optic is approximately 20" from the 10" FL lens, so the beam has gone through its waist and is again expanding approaching the test optic. I believe that at the test optic, the beam is very close to 4 mm.