Patent ID: 8596823
Filing Date: 2013-12-03
Classification: G02B,H01S

Abstract:
1. Optical apparatus for forming a line of radiation having a length and a width, the apparatus comprising: a plurality of spaced-apart stacks of diode-laser bars, each of the diode-laser bars having a plurality of diode-laser emitters, and having a fast-axis and a slow-axis perpendicular to the fast-axis and parallel to a length dimension of the bars, the diode-laser bars in the stacks stacked in the fast-axis direction thereof, wherein the stacks of diode-laser bars are aligned one above another in the fast-axis direction of the diode-laser bars and the length direction of the line of radiation is parallel to the fast-axis direction; a plurality of collimating arrangements corresponding in number to the number of diode-laser bars for collimating the output radiation of the diode-laser bars in the diode-laser bars stacks in at least the fast-axis direction thereby forming a plurality of output radiation beams corresponding in number to the plurality of diode-laser bar stacks; a first optical arrangement configured to collect the output radiation beams from all of the diode-laser bar stacks, homogenize and expand the beams in the length direction of the line of radiation and partially overlap the homogenized expanded beams in a first plane at a predetermined distance from the first optical arrangement wherein the first optical arrangement includes a plurality of pairs of cylindrical microlens arrays, one for each of the plurality of diode-laser bar stacks with each array including the same number of cylindrical microlenses as the number of diode-laser bars in the stack, the cylindrical lenses in the arrays being aligned with each other, aligned with the slow-axis of the diode-laser bars, and having positive optical power in the fast-axis and zero optical power in the slow-axis, and a first group of cylindrical lens elements forming a beam expander having positive optical power in the fast-axis and zero optical-power in the slow-axis, the pairs of microlens arrays being located between the diode-laser bar stacks and the group of lens elements; and a second optical arrangement configured to homogenize and image the partially overlapped and expanded beams in a second plane at a predetermined distance from the second optical arrangement to form the line of radiation, with the homogenizing and imaging being arranged such that the line of radiation has an about uniform distribution of intensity along the length thereof.