Beam concentration and homogenization for high power laser diode bar

A novel optical element is presented and applied for beam concentration and homogenization of laser diode (LD) bar. It consists of a tapered SiO2-rod with twisted surfaces which is designed and optimized by the optical system design software and fabricated by a curved surface grinder and an optical polishing lathe. Results show that a rectangular output beam spot with uniform intensity distributions both at slow and fast axis is obtained at the output facet of the rod and the beam size is only 1.3 mm ∗ 0.8 mm.