Ralf Biertuempfel

Flat hat glass diffractive optical beam shaper

Many laser applications need a homogeneous - so called flat hat - light distribution in the application area. However, many laser emit Gaussian shaped light. The technology of diffractive optical elements (DOE) can be used to shape the Gaussian beam into a flat hat beam at a compact length. SCHOTT presents a DOE design of a flat hat DOE beam shaper made out of optical glass. Here the material glass has the significant advantage of high laser durability, low scattering losses, high resistance to temperature, moisture, and chemicals compared to polymer DOEs. Simulations and measurements on different DOEs for different wavelength, laser beam width, and laser divergence are presented. Surprisingly the flat hat DOE beam shaper depends only weakly on wavelength and beam width but strongly on laser divergence. Based on the good agreement between simulation and measurement an improved flat hat DOE beam shaper is also presented.