Square shaped flat-top beam in refractive beam shapers

Alexander Laskin; Vadim Laskin; Aleksei Ostrun

doi:10.1117/12.2186247

25 August 2015 Square shaped flat-top beam in refractive beam shapers

Alexander Laskin, Vadim Laskin, Aleksei Ostrun

Proceedings Volume 9581, Laser Beam Shaping XVI; 95810K (2015) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2186247
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2015, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Lossless transformation of round Gaussian to square shaped flat-top collimated beam is important in building highpower solid state laser systems to improve optical pumping or amplification. There are industrial micromachining applications like scribing, display repair, which performance is improved when a square shaped spot with uniform intensity is created. Proved beam shaping solutions to these techniques are refractive field mapping beam shapers having some important features: flatness of output phase front, small output divergence, high transmittance, extended depth of field, operation with TEM00 and multimode lasers. Usual approach to design refractive beam shapers implies that input and output beams have round cross-section, therefore the only way to create a square shaped output beam is using a square mask, which leads to essential losses. When an input laser beam is linearly polarized it is suggested to generate square shaped flat-top output by applying beam shaper lenses from birefringent materials or by using additional birefringent components. Due to birefringence there is introduced phase retardation in beam parts and is realized a square shaped interference pattern at the beam shaper output. Realization of this approach requires small phase retardation, therefore weak birefringence effect is enough and birefringent optical components, operating in convergent or divergent beams, can be made from refractive materials, which crystal optical axis is parallel to optical axis of entire beam shaper optical system. There will be considered design features of beam shapers creating square shaped flat-top beams. Examples of real implementations and experimental results will be presented as well.

Citation Download Citation

Alexander Laskin, Vadim Laskin, and Aleksei Ostrun "Square shaped flat-top beam in refractive beam shapers", Proc. SPIE 9581, Laser Beam Shaping XVI, 95810K (25 August 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2186247

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