Top Hat Laser Beam Profile

In optics a tophat or top hat beam such as a laser beam or electron beam has a near uniform fluence energy density within a circular disk.

Top hat laser beam profile.

There are many applications in which this type of beam profile is undesirable as it. Tophat beams are often used in industry for example for laser drilling of holes in printed circuit boards. This means that their irradiance decays smoothly from the centre point towards the edges. This is in contrast to gaussian beams for example where the intensity smoothly decays from its maximum on the beam axis to zero.

In cytometry a top hat beam ensures that each cell being monitored is illuminated with the same irradiance. For instance in hole drilling the top hat beam can be square or circular whereas some applications in materials processing will benefit from a line or square profile distribution. Such beam profiles are required for some laser applications. A top hat laser beam also known as flat top laser beam is a laser beam whose intensity profile at certain optical plains typical the far field or the system focus plane is mostly flat unlike the typical gaussian like intensity profile of most laser beams.

It is typically formed by diffractive optical elements from a gaussian beam. Each application will demand its own type of top hat laser beam. A flat top beam or top hat beam is a light beam often a transformed laser beam having an intensity profile which is flat over most of the covered area. Features laser beam size adaptable up to 20 compensates for input beam tolerances refractive efficiency 97 achromatic free space or fiber coupled suitable for custom specifications applications.