The most important optical component in the beam shaping systems in high-power diode lasers is the Fast-Axis Collimation optic. The lenses are manufactured from high-quality glass and have an acylindrical surface. Their high numerical aperture permits the entire diode output to be collimated with outstanding beam quality. The high transmission and excellent collimation characteristics guarantee the highest levels of beam shaping efficiency for diode lasers.
Fast Axis Collimators are compact, high performance aspheric cylindrical lenses designed for beam shaping or laser diode collimation applications. The aspheric cylindrical designs and high numerical apertures allow for uniform collimation of the entire output of a laser diode while maintaining high beam quality.
Advantages
application-optimized design
high numerical aperture (NA 0.8)
diffraction-limited collimation
transmission up to 99%
highest level of precision and uniformity
manufacturing process is highly economical for large quantities
reliable and stable quality
Laser Diode Collimation
Laser diodes typically have output characteristics which are substantially different from most other laser types. Specifically, they produce highly divergent output rather than a collimated beam. Furthermore, this divergence is asymmetrical; the divergence is much larger in the plane perpendicular to the active layers in the diode chip, compared to the plane parallel to these layers. The more highly divergent plane is referred to as the «fast axis», while the lower divergence direction is called the «slow axis».
Effectively utilizing laser diode output almost always requires collimation or other reshaping of this divergent, asymmetric beam. And, this is typically done using separate optics for the fast and slow axes because of their differing properties. Accomplishing this in practice therefore requires the use of optics which have power in only one dimension (e.g. cylindrical or acircular cylindric lenses).
Post time: Dec-15-2022