A continuously variable beam expander driven by ultrasonic motors

Zhangfan Xu; Song Pan; Lei Chen; Sisi Di; Weiqing Huang

doi:10.1063/1.5117189

A continuously variable beam expander driven by ultrasonic motors

Rev Sci Instrum. 2019 Sep;90(9):096107. doi: 10.1063/1.5117189.

Authors

Zhangfan Xu¹, Song Pan¹, Lei Chen¹, Sisi Di¹, Weiqing Huang¹

Affiliation

¹ State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China.

PMID: 31575243
DOI: 10.1063/1.5117189

Abstract

A dynamic beam shaping system requires a variable beam expander. Three optical lenses form the core of the proposed beam expander, and two hollow ultrasonic motors are used to adjust the positions of two of the lenses. A polymer-based stator is introduced in the ultrasonic motors to decrease their weight, whereupon a prototype is machined and its performance is assessed. The beam expander starts and stops within 0.05 s, and the minimum positioning error is 0.03 µm by adjusting the motor speed. The presented expander can continuously expand a laser beam by between threefold and fivefold, and nanoscale positioning and high-precision beam shaping are realized by using ultrasonic motors as its actuators.