Interference wedged structures as high efficient optical beam splitters – development and simple practical realization

Abstract

Abstract Having essential experience and results, concerning Interference Wedged Structures (IWS), we have developed and practically realized optical beam splitter elements as suitably built variants of IWS. The principle of action, theoretical treatment, including computer simulation for optimization is briefly discussed. As an essential point, the technological approach for practical realization of simplest applicable Interference Wedged Based Splitters (IWBS), are carried out. The splitters are built as compact thin flat and plane, practically – sheet-like, elements with dimensions e.g. ∼ 4 × 3 × 0.2 cm. They present advantages as: smooth and linear varying the power ratio between the formed beams by simple sliding of the splitter in its plane; keeping the direction of propagation of the formed beams during the control of their variations; very small losses in splitting (theoretically ∼5 %); work with high power incident beams (kW/cm2 and more for CW and MW/cm2 for ns pulses beams).