Engineered beam shaping effect in anisotropic photonic crystals

Appl Opt. 2010 Apr 10;49(11):2161-7. doi: 10.1364/AO.49.002161.

Abstract

We demonstrate that an anisotropic photonic crystal can modify the shape of a highly convergent incident optical beam. The beam shape engineering is relatively easy, and the photonic crystal is less alignment demanding than beam shapers that incorporate several optical systems. The shape of the output beam can be controlled by an appropriate choice of the angular divergence of the beam, the number of periods and the birefringence values and layer widths of the constituent materials.