Off-axis collimation of diode laser beams by means of single-element holographic diffractive optics

Principles of single-element holographic diffractive optics for collimation of diode laser beams with a large divergence, an elliptic cross-section, and astigmatism are presented. Holographic off-axis transformation enables collimation of the beam in two variants: one with a perpendicular input beam and an oblique output beam, and the other with the beams arranged vice-versa. Diffraction due to an elliptic aperture is analyzed. Inspection of experimental samples demonstrates an agreement with theory in the case of diffraction limited focal pattern and shows increase of astigmatism with the departure from diffraction only limitation.