title: Laser beam profile shaping with interlaced binary diffraction gratings.
abstract: A new CO(2) laser beam profile shaper was designed and tested. With high-power efficiency, it transforms a fundamental mode laser beam profile into a flattop profile at a focal plane. The shaper uses an interlaced binary diffraction grating that modulates the E field both in phase and amplitude and generates an apodized and clipped sinc(x) distribution in the object plane.
authors.affiliation: MIT Lincoln Laboratory, P O Box 73, Lexington, Massachusetts 02173, USA.
authors.forename: W B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Veldkamp