Simplified freeform optics design for complicated laser beam shaping

• Published in: Applied optics (2004) 2017-11, Vol.56 (33), p.9308
• Main Authors: Feng, Zexin, Froese, Brittany D, Liang, Rongguang, Cheng, Dewen, Wang, Yongtian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1559-128X; 2155-3165
• DOI: 10.1364/AO.56.009308

Control of the optical fields of laser beams, i.e., laser beam shaping, is of great importance to many laser applications. Freeform optics offers plenty of advantages for complex beam shaping requirements, including precise beam control, energy efficiency, compact structure, and relatively low cost. We present a modified ray-mapping method to simplify the freeform optics design for complicated optical field control and achieve a challenging task of producing two prescribed beam profiles on two successive target planes. This method begins by calculating an approximate output ray sequence that connects the two prescribed beam profiles and a corresponding input ray sequence. After setting an initial profile of the first freeform optical surface on the input ray sequence, we can obtain the second freeform optical surface based on the optical path length constancy between the given input wavefront and the computed output wavefront. Then, we can acquire all the normal vectors of the first freeform optical surface using Snell's law and approximately reconstruct the first freeform optical surface by solving a relationship between the surface points and normal vectors using a fast least squares method. The surface construction process is repeated until the stop criterion is satisfied. We design three freeform lenses, and Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate their abilities of simultaneously producing two challenging beam profiles from a divergent Gaussian beam.