The Diffractive Optical Elements or DOEs are meant to enhance laser beams with maximum energy efficiency. Negligible light is lost during the process, which is used in different types of industries. However, it’s not only the laser devices that get benefitted by DOEs but also other light applications like long-range distance sensors, light detection and ranging and more. The Diffractive Optics are effectively used to pattern the light rays for custom illumination in beam shapers, splitters, pattern generators, kinoforms, blazed and slanted gratings and so on.
In this post, we are going to get into the details of the benefits of using DOEs in different work areas.
The DOEs are precise and energy-efficient
As mentioned earlier, the DOEs lose a negligible amount of light while splitting the laser beams and shaping them. They can also control the light intensity best. Further, modern production techniques that have evolved through numerous years make sure that the diffractive optical elements are precise and powerful at the same time.
They are versatile and can be customized
Any refractive optics can be easily replaced with the DOEs, as they are quite versatile. These diffractive optical elements can also be customized according to the needs and preferences of various devices. The DOEs are also able to control the phases across the aperture perfectly to create complicated light intensity profiles.
Coming to the applications of the DOEs they find a wide range of uses as follows:
Improving the quality of laser devices
Diffractive optical elements are extensively used in splitting and shaping the laser beams during welding, soldering, cutting and drilling processes. A conventional beam splitter is used to splits the incident laser beams into one or two-dimensional array of beams using DOEs and focusing lens. These arrays of beams can then be used in laser dicing and other similar material processing units, camera calibration, multi-focal microscopy and more.
Generating patterns with a high field depth
The DOEs are also used to create a pattern of several overlapping spots in a diffractive diffuser and visible individual spots in a diffractive beam-splitter. The diffraction angles of the beams are quite precise, especially when they are generated from a laser source with a stable frequency. These are used in 3D sensing to create De Brujn pattern, pseudo-random spot patterns and the fringe patterns, not to forget barcode scanner, POI patterns and of course, laser aiming.
Customized diffractive diffusers
Specifically tailored diffractive diffusers are used for 3D sensing to determine flight timings, laser auto focusing, illumination applications and LIDAR. Specifically tailored DOEs are used to create different light distributions for the required wavelength by suppressing the zero-order diffraction below 1%.
Are you looking for exceptional-quality diffractive optical elements? Get in touch with NIL Technology for a wide range of DOEs for different commercial and industrial purposes.