Degama, MPForbes, A2010-12-032010-12-032010-07Degama, MP and Forbes, A. 2010. Wavelength-independent laser beam shaping. Proceedings of SPIE 7789, 778904 (2010)http://hdl.handle.net/10204/4589Copyright 2010 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic electronic or print reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibited.This paper presents a beam shaping device namely, a Diffractive Optical Element (DOE), which is used to change a beam having a Gaussian intensity profile into a beam with a uniform intensity profile. The DOE used in this work was fabricated from ZnSe and its performance was evaluated using a cw CO2 laser. In most cases such elements are effective only at a specific design wavelength. However, in this paper the authors report on the design conditions which allow for wavelength independent elements. It was found that the DOE was able to successfully transform a Gaussian beam into a flattop beam for four different wavelengths in the range 9.2 µm to 10.6 µm. They also experimental results on misalignment effects and it was found that small radial offsets of the incident beam on the DOE had a significant disruptive effect on the flattop beam profileenLaser beam shapingFlattop beamsDiffractive optical elementWavelength independent elementsWavelength-independent laser beam shapingConference PresentationDegama, M., & Forbes, A. (2010). Wavelength-independent laser beam shaping. Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). http://hdl.handle.net/10204/4589Degama, MP, and A Forbes. "Wavelength-independent laser beam shaping." (2010): http://hdl.handle.net/10204/4589Degama M, Forbes A, Wavelength-independent laser beam shaping; Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE); 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/4589 .TY - Conference Presentation AU - Degama, MP AU - Forbes, A AB - This paper presents a beam shaping device namely, a Diffractive Optical Element (DOE), which is used to change a beam having a Gaussian intensity profile into a beam with a uniform intensity profile. The DOE used in this work was fabricated from ZnSe and its performance was evaluated using a cw CO2 laser. In most cases such elements are effective only at a specific design wavelength. However, in this paper the authors report on the design conditions which allow for wavelength independent elements. It was found that the DOE was able to successfully transform a Gaussian beam into a flattop beam for four different wavelengths in the range 9.2 µm to 10.6 µm. They also experimental results on misalignment effects and it was found that small radial offsets of the incident beam on the DOE had a significant disruptive effect on the flattop beam profile DA - 2010-07 DB - ResearchSpace DP - CSIR KW - Laser beam shaping KW - Flattop beams KW - Diffractive optical element KW - Wavelength independent elements LK - https://researchspace.csir.co.za PY - 2010 T1 - Wavelength-independent laser beam shaping TI - Wavelength-independent laser beam shaping UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10204/4589 ER -