Refractive, diffractive and reflective micro-optical elements for laser beam shaping and homogenizing have been manufactured and tested. The presented multifunctional optical elements are used for shaping arbitrary laser beam profiles into a variety of geometries like, a homogeneous spot array or line pattern, a laser light sheet or flat-top intensity profiles. The resulting profiles are strongly influenced by the beam properties of the laser and by diffraction and interference effects at the micro-optical elements. We present general design rules for beam shaping and homogenizing. We demonstrate the application of such multifunctional micro-optical elements for a variety of applications from micro-laser machining to laser diagnostic systems.
KEYWORDS: Collimators, Tolerancing, Collimation, Signal attenuation, Channel projecting optics, Telecommunications, Monte Carlo methods, Fiber optics, Free space optics, Data transmission
Data transmission between rotating and stationary systems, e.g. required for radar antennas or for undersea cable installation ships can be realized with so called rotary joints. For the transmission of several high bit rate optical data channels a micro optical rotary joint is now available which guarantees a dead reliable, low loss transmission for up to 21 parallel single mode channels. The free space transmission in the rotary joint implicates a highly precise collimation of the parallel channels. For this purpose compact two dimensional fiber collimator arrays based on micro lens arrays have been developed. These arrays and the complete opto-mechanical system are designed with the help of tolerance analysis using Monte Carlo simulations. Besides these results also some more information on the behavior and the characteristics of the micro optical rotary joint under real conditions which demonstrate the excellent characteristics of this novel system will be given.
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