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Published on: October 11, 2016
Spatial properties of coaxial superposition of two coherent Gaussian beams
Boualem Boubaha1, Darryl Naidoo, Thomas Godin
1Faculté de Physique, Université des Sciences et de la Technologie Houari Boumédiène, Algiers, Algeria.
Abstract:
In this paper, we explore theoretically and experimentally the laser beam shaping ability resulting from the coaxial superposition of two coherent Gaussian beams (GBs). This technique is classified under interferometric laser beam shaping techniques contrasting with the usual ones based on diffraction. The experimental setup does not involve the use of some two-wave interferometer but uses a spatial light modulator for the generation of the necessary interference term. This allows one to avoid the thermal drift occurring in interferometers and gives a total flexibility of the key parameter setting the beam transformation. In particular, we demonstrate the reshaping of a GB into a bottle beam or top-hat beam in the focal plane of a focusing lens.
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