Microlens array for stacked laser diode beam collimation

To collimate effectively the beam emitted from the stacked laser diode in which the lasing surfaces of the diode bars are not located in a plane, a new type of fast-axis collimator, refractive cylindrical microlens array with tunable focal lengths, is presented in this paper. Each lens of the array has the same diameter of 300μm but different focal lengths, ranged from 430μm to 540μm. By means of the mask moving lithography and replication technology, the microlens array was successfully fabricated. The measured fast-axis divergence of the stacked laser diode beam after the collimator was 25mrad, about half of the one (40mrad) for the microlens array with common focal lengths of 400μm.