Adjustable‐Function Beam Shaping Methods

Abstract

Laser welding is used in a wide range of industrial applications including automotive, aerospace, semiconductors, electronics, medical, power, defense, and others. The raw laser beam is not the optimal shape for many industrial applications in general and especially in the field of welding, brazing, soldering, and other similar processes. Compared to other laser material processing applications, these processes stand out in terms of the required laser power (multi kW) and the highly multimode beams often used. A process‐specific tailored laser intensity distribution can improve throughput, seam height, strength, and the edge smoothness of the joints.

Design of annular beam shaping system based on freeform surface

“…Laser is widely used in manufacturing, information transmission, biotechnology and other fields [1][2] because of its advantages such as good monochromativity and high brightness [3][4]. However, these fields often require input beams with specific irradiance distribution, and Gaussian beam needs beam shaping to achieve the required illuminance distribution [5][6].The shaped beam is generally a flattened beam with uniform energy distribution.…”

Structured light for ultrafast laser micro- and nanoprocessing

“…[Simultaneous spatial and temporal focusing (SSTF) concepts 15 are not part of this review since applied pulses exhibit durations of >100 fs.] The spatial properties, on the other hand, are determined by efficient and power-resistant concepts based on, e.g., diffractive-optical elements (DOEs), 16,17 free-form optical elements (ROEs), 16,18 or geometric phase holograms 19 (stationary or adaptive versions) illuminated single or multiple times. Together with the focusing unit (used NAs up to 0.5), 6 the beam shaping elements form the processing optics 6 usually fed with free-space or fiber-guided pulses, 20,21 see Fig.…”