Materials processing depends on different optical laser beam delivery options to ensure the proper beam profile at the workpiece. While the beam profile and focus size can be modified through interchangeable optics (a manual and time-consuming process), Laserline’s (Santa Clara, CA) zoom homogenizer provides a rectangular top-hat focus. It is scalable on the fly in one or two axes by a factor of ten, so various focus sizes and ratios can be achieved with just one optic. This makes it particularly useful for heat treatment or cladding applications.
The zoom homogenizer is a sealed, water-cooled 135 × 137 × 300 mm module to allow simple and reliable operation in an industrial environment and weighs less than 8 kg. It is designed for Laserline’s fiber-coupled diode lasers and operates with laser power levels of up to 10 kW. The motorized movement of the optical-homogenizer elements inside the optic enables the laser focus width and/or height to be dynamically scaled within 1 s while maintaining a homogeneous energy distribution. Lines of up to 180 mm and rectangles of up to 80 × 80 mm can be achieved. Laserline produces several options to remotely control the focus size for integration into any machine control system. An optional pyrometer including controller allows closed-loop temperature control. Contact Wolfgang Todt at [email protected].
