Asymmetrical prism for beam shaping of laser diode stacks

A beam-shaping scheme for a laser diode stack to obtain a flattop output intensity profile is proposed. The shaping element consists of an asymmetrical glass prism. The large divergence-angle compression in the direction perpendicular to the junction plane and the small divergence-angle expansion in the parallel direction are performed simultaneously by a single shaping element. The transformation characteristics are presented, and the optimization performance is investigated based on the ray-tracing method. Analysis shows that a flattop intensity profile can be obtained. This beam-shaping system can be fabricated easily and has a large alignment tolerance.