Design and fabrication of diffractive elements for laser material processing applications

Diffractive optical elements have an important role to play in the provisio n of process adapted beam shaping for laser-materials processing applicatio ns. The design techniques and dominant methods of fabrication are described for intra-cavity and external beam shaping diffractive elements fabricated in a variety of dielectric and metallic materials for use with a wide rang e of laser sources. Theoretical and experimental examples are given in each section. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.