Scan mirrors relay for high resolution laser scanning systems

Abstract

Two dimensional beam deflection is often required in medical laser scanning systems such as OCT or confocal microscopy. Commonly two linear galvo mirrors are used for performance in terms of their large apertures and scan angles. The galvo mirrors are placed at the vicinity of entrance pupil of the scan lens with a “displacement distance” separating them. This distance limits the scan fields and/or reduces the effective aperture of the scan lens. Another option is to use a beam or pupil relay, and image one galvo mirror onto the other. However, beam (or pupil) relays are notoriously complicated, expensive and can add significant aberrations. This paper discusses a simple, all reflective, diffraction limited, color corrected, beam relay, capable of large scan angles and large deflecting mirrors. The design is based on a unique combination of an Offner configuration with a Schmidt aspheric corrector. The design is highly corrected up to large scan mirrors and large scan angles down to milliwaves of aberrations. It allows significantly larger scan field and or scan lenses with higher numerical aperture as compared with scanners using galvos separated by the displacement distance. While this relay is of exceptionally high performance, it has one element located where the beam is focused which may present a problem for high power lasers. Thus modifications of the above design are introduced where the beam is focused in mid air thus making it usable for high power systems such including laser marking and fabrication systems.