Tailored freeform lens pairs can offer unprecedented flexibility and performance for laser beam shaping systems. It has been known for some time how a pair of plano-aspheric lenses can be designed to transform a rotationally symmetric collimated (laser) beam to a rotationally symmetric output beam with a desired intensity distribution, for example a circular flat-top. In this article, the authors demonstrate how a pair of plano-freeform lenses can be designed to transform a collimated input beam with arbitrary intensity distribution to a collimated output beam with an arbitrary user-chosen intensity distribution. Building on previous works, the authors solve this challenging design problem by using the so-called supporting quadric method merged with ideas of optimal mass transport theory. In addition, they show that the resulting freeform shapes of both lenses can be chosen strictly convex, a very important feature when it comes to fabrication. Consequently, their design method provides a rigorous and highly flexible approach for designing freeform optics for arbitrary input and output irradiance distributions and collimated beams. Given the impact of this work, I expect the article to be a popular reference for freeform optical designers.

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