Non-paraxial laser beam shaping

The reshaping of laser beams to intensity distributions with high homogeneity is of practical interest for a lot of applications. Often the generation of intensity distributions with high resolution, very small or large diameters is of practical interest. These intensities correspond typically with waves with high divergence angles. For the generation of these intensities non-paraxial beam shaping systems are needed. The authors will explain how known paraxial beam shaping techniques can be extended for the design of systems creating non-paraxial output fields. The systems, explained in this article, will consist of a paraxial diffractive element together with a non-paraxial lens. This new extended design concept will be explained on the example of the shaping of a circular Top Hat from a Gaussian beam.