The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 25, 1998
Filed:
Dec. 18, 1996
John Lawrence Nightingale, Portola Valley, CA (US);
John Anderson Trail, Menlo Park, CA (US);
John Kelly Johnson, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Coherent, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
An optical system is disclosed for improving the brightness symmetry of a beam emitted from a laser diode where the beam has a large width and a narrow height. The optical system includes a tilt plate for displacing one half of the width of the beam downwardly. A first beam steering prism functions to tilt the remaining, second half of the beam width in a plane parallel to the width dimension so that the second half travels towards the first half. A second beam steering prism is provided to tilt the second half of the beam so that its propagation axis is parallel to the propagation axis of the first half and wherein the second half is stacked above the first half. The optical system functions to improve the brightness symmetry of the beam by a factor of about five. The corrected beam can be used to improve the performance of a solid state laser which is end pumped by a broad area laser diode or a laser diode bar.