Laser Beam Shaping by Means of Flexible Mirrors

The widespread use of lasers in technological processes highlights the problem of controlling the laser beam parameters. For example, metal-cutting processes typically demand the tightest beam focus possible. ¹ On the other hand, metal-hardening processes require a laser beam with the most uniform transverse irradiance distribution possible. ² For several laser applications in material processing and manufacturing, nonlinear conversion of a laser beam to a shape with uniform rectangular crosssection is often desirable. ^{1, 2} Examples of such uniform beams include highly multimode laser beams, ³ flattened Gaussian beams, ^{4, 5} and super-Gaussian beams. ^{6, 7}