Abstract
Current techniques developed for beam shaping of multi-mode laser diode (LD) output are reviewed and a new approach for the direct micro-processing with a single-mode LD is reported. The advantage of single-mode LD for high brightness focusing, the source of aberration in LD light, and the method to improve the brightness are described. The experiment on the laser ablative shaping (LAS) for single-mode laser light indicated that the initial wavefront distortion of 0.9 λ was improved to 0.4 λ. Possible applications of LD micro-marking system are described.
