LASER REPETITION RATE MULTIPLIER AND FLAT-TOP BEAM PROFILE GENERATORS USING MIRRORS AND/OR PRISMS

摘要

The repetition rate (pulse) multiplier includes one or more beam splitters and prisms that form one or more ring cavities with different optical path lengths that delay a portion of the energy of each pulse. A series of input pulses circulate in the ring cavity and the energy portion of each pulse exits the system after traversing the shorter cavity path, the other portion of energy exits the system after traversing the longer cavity path, and/ Or exit the system after traversing a combination of both common paths. By appropriate selection of the ring cavity optical path length, the repetition rate of the output series of laser pulses can be a multiple of the input repetition rate. The relative energy of the output pulse can be controlled by selecting the transmission and reflection efficiency of the beam splitter. Some embodiments produce a time average output beam profile that is substantially flat in one dimension.