Optical choppers are widely used in laser systems – for light modulation and/or attenuation. In their most used and wellknown configuration, they are built as a rotational wheel with windows, which transforms a continuous-wave laser beam into a series of impulses with a certain frequency and profile. We briefly present the analysis and design we have completed for the classical chopper wheels (i.e., with windows with linear margins) for both top-hat and Gaussian laser beams. Further on, novel chopper wheels configurations, with outward or inward semi-circular (or with other non-linear shaped) margins of the windows is pointed out; we completed for them both analytic functions and simulations, for both top-hat and Gaussian beams, in order to deduce their transmission functions (i.e., the time profile of the laser impulses generated by the device). The stress of the presentation is put on the novel choppers with shafts (patent pending); their transmission functions are pointed out for top-hat laser beams. Finally, an example of such choppers is considered, with regard to the necessary Finite Element Analysis (FEA) that has to be performed for their rotational shaft. Both the mechanical stress and the deformations in the shaft have to be taken into account, especially at high rotational speeds of the mobile element.
The paper presents a report on our current work on obtaining the analytic functions of the laser impulses generated by optical choppers with disks in their classical configuration - with windows that have linear margins. With regard to our previous researches, focused on choppers working with top-hat (i.e., with constant intensity) laser beams, in the present work Gaussian laser beam distributions of the light beams to be chopped have been considered, for the most common case, of a light bundle of a sufficient small diameter in the plane of the disk; this type of section can therefore be completely obscured and uncovered by the chopper wings and windows, respectively. The functions of the transmitted light flux of the device are approached. This allows for the designing calculus of choppers for different applications, taking into account their specific requirements. A comparison between analytical results obtained in this work and results from our previous numerical modeling is pointed out.
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