Modeling of the laser beam shape for high-power applications

Jan K. Jabczyński; Mateusz Kaskow; Łukasz F. Gorajek; Krzysztof Kopczyński; Waldemar Zendzian

doi:10.1117/1.OE.57.4.046107

13 April 2018 Modeling of the laser beam shape for high-power applications

Jan K. Jabczyński, Mateusz Kaskow, Łukasz F. Gorajek, Krzysztof Kopczyński, Waldemar Zendzian

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Optical Engineering, Vol. 57, Issue 4, 046107 (April 2018). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.57.4.046107

Abstract

Aperture losses and thermo-optic effects (TOE) inside optics as well as the effective beam width in far field should be taken into account in the analysis of the most appropriate laser beam profile for high-power applications. We have theoretically analyzed such a problem for a group of super-Gaussian beams taking first only diffraction limitations. Furthermore, we have investigated TOE on far-field parameters of such beams to determine the influence of absorption in optical elements on beam quality degradation. The best compromise gives the super-Gaussian profile of index p = 5, for which beam quality does not decrease noticeably and the thermo-optic higher order aberrations are compensated. The simplified formulas were derived for beam quality metrics (parameter M² and Strehl ratio), which enable estimation of the influence of heat deposited in optics on degradation of beam quality. The method of dynamic compensation of such effect was proposed.

CC BY: © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

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Jan K. Jabczyński, Mateusz Kaskow, Łukasz F. Gorajek, Krzysztof Kopczyński, and Waldemar Zendzian "Modeling of the laser beam shape for high-power applications," Optical Engineering 57(4), 046107 (13 April 2018). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.57.4.046107

Received: 6 December 2017; Accepted: 21 March 2018; Published: 13 April 2018

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