What Is a Beam Expander?
The beam expander is designed to expand the diameter of the parallel input beam to a larger parallel output beam. Beam expanders are commonly used in applications such as laser scanning, interferometry, or telemetry. Today's beam expanders are designed using an afocal system developed from the foundation of a perfect optical telescope. In such systems, the light rays of the object at infinity enter the optical axis of the internal optics in a parallel manner, while leaving in a parallel manner. This means that the entire system does not have a focal length.
- The beam expander is designed to expand the diameter of the parallel input beam to a larger parallel output beam. Beam expanders are commonly used in applications such as laser scanning, interferometry, or telemetry. Today's beam expanders are based on perfect optics
- Explore the laser beam expander equations described earlier with numerical examples.
- Initial parameters:
- Laser beam expander magnification = MP = 10X
- Input beam diameter = 1mm
- Input beam divergence = 1mrad
- Working distance = L = 100m
- Calculation parameters: output beam diameter
- Without the use of equations
- Although the laser beam expander will increase the input laser beam due to a specific beam expansion power, it will also reduce the beam divergence due to the same beam expansion power, thereby forming smaller parallel beams at a larger distance. [3]