Geometrical methods for laser beam shaping

Abstract

For illumination applications, such as in holography, optical processing, spectroscopy, materials processing, and lithography, it is very important for the laser beam to uniformly illuminate the target surface. Geometrical optics is used to configure reflective and/or refractive optical components so that the irradiance profile of a laser beam can uniformly illuminate a target surface. The laws of reflection and/or refraction, ray tracing, conservation of energy within a bundle of rays, and constant optical path length condition are used to determine the shapes of the optical components required to achieve the desired target illumination. Interference or diffraction effects are not considered as part of the design process. References 1 and 2 describe the theory of using geometrical optics for the design laser beam shaping systems.For illumination applications, such as in holography, optical processing, spectroscopy, materials processing, and lithography, it is very important for the laser beam to uniformly illuminate the target surface. Geometrical optics is used to configure reflective and/or refractive optical components so that the irradiance profile of a laser beam can uniformly illuminate a target surface. The laws of reflection and/or refraction, ray tracing, conservation of energy within a bundle of rays, and constant optical path length condition are used to determine the shapes of the optical components required to achieve the desired target illumination. Interference or diffraction effects are not considered as part of the design process. References 1 and 2 describe the theory of using geometrical optics for the design laser beam shaping systems.