Shaping and Focusing of a Laser Diode Beam and Applications to Printing and Marking

Abstract

An optics is described through which an elliptical beam emitted from a laser diode can be shaped into a circular spot with a small diameter of 2μm. The focused beam is utilized to produce such fine patterns as gratings with ruling up to 40 lines per mm. And also for practical applications, printing and marking of characters on papers and plastics sheets can be realized with high quality on account of high power density of the focused beam.