What Makes a Beam Shaping Problem Difficult?

Conference · Wed Jul 19 04:00:00 EDT 2000

OSTI ID:760055

ROMERO, LOUIS ^[1]; DICKEY, FRED M

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1. Sandia National Laboratories

The authors have discussed the three factors that they believe are the most important in determining the difficulty of a beam shaping problem: scaling, smoothness, and coherence. The arguments have been almost completely based on considering how these factors influence beam shaping lenses that were designed using geometrical optics. However, they believe that these factors control the difficulty of beam shaping problems even if one does not base ones design strategy on geometrical optics. For example, they have shown that a lens designed using geometrical optics will not work well unless {beta} is large. However, they have also shown that if {beta} is small the uncertainty principle shows that it is impossible to do a good job of beam shaping no matter how one designs ones lens.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (US); Sandia National Labs., Livermore, CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: US Department of Energy (US)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000
• OSTI ID: 760055
• Report Number(s): SAND2000-0078C
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
BEAM OPTICS
BEAM SHAPING
DESIGN
LENSES
PROCESS CONTROL
UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE