Beam Shaping and Delivery Micro-Optics with Optimized Surfaces for High Energy Applications

The continuous power and energy scaling of single and multi-cavity lasers opens new fields of applications in research and industry. To achieve a reliably performing optical system, the surface quality, coatings and materials should withstand the energy flux through all material interfaces in the beam path without spontaneous or continuous degradation. Surface defects, anisotropic material, geometric tension, absorption, and resulting deformation and thermal lensing could decrease the lifetime of the optics.

In more complex optical systems, such as lithography, laser fusion, or laser materials processing systems, successful operation is directly linked to uptime and related preventive service intervals, or even service-free operation over the entire system's lifetime. Hauschild will present new functional surfaces for beam shaping of high-energy lasers with ultra-precision polished surface quality and low stress surface shapes that can be combined with AR thin-film coatings or AR nano structures to achieve the highest damage threshold in comparison with other micro-optics production technologies.

Besides the optimization processes to reduce the defect density and defect size with a geometry-neutral polishing approach, Hauschild also shows damage threshold tests that give an indication about addressable energy densities and applications with continuous operating and pulsed laser sources. In addition to state-of-the-art homogenization and beam shaping micro-optics, Hauschild also explores the latest results in beam splitting and beam combing with analog phase gratings featuring advanced surface quality, high-transmission coatings, and nanostructured surfaces.

About the presenter
Dirk Hauschild is senior strategic marking expert at Focuslight Technologies Inc. with over 30 years of experience in the design, development and integration of micro-optical components and systems to enable photonics based advanced solutions and technologies. He has an engineering degree from the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany, with focus on generation and guiding of photons to drive current and coming generations of photonic applications and technologies.