Abstract

A novel method to test the collimation of laser beams with optically active mediums and a pair of crossed polarizers is presented. Optically active materials rotate the plane of polarization of incident plane-polarized light. A decollimated laser beam passing through such a material will experience a greater effective thickness than a collimated laser beam, resulting in greater outputs. In this method the output intensity variation is related to the amount of decollimation of the incident beam, and the method does not require any referencing or fringe analysis and is easy to implement.

© 2005 Optical Society of America

Wave-front analysis method of circular aperture sampling for collimation testing

Mingli Zhang, Liren Liu, Lingyu Wan, and Zhu Luan
Appl. Opt. 44(14) 2705-2709 (2005)

Improved collimation testing technique

Asloob Ahmad Mudassar and Saira Butt
Appl. Opt. 51(26) 6429-6440 (2012)

Collimation testing by use of the Lau effect coupled with moiré readout

Santosh Rana and Shashi Prakash
Appl. Opt. 45(14) 3213-3217 (2006)

Collimation testing using deflectometry in conjunction with windowed Fourier transform analysis

Jitendra Dhanotia, Vimal Bhatia, and Shashi Prakash
Appl. Opt. 56(8) 2346-2352 (2017)

Wavefront reversal technique for self-referencing collimation testing

King Ung Hii and Kuan Hiang Kwek
Appl. Opt. 49(4) 668-672 (2010)