Beam Shaping with Higher Laguerre-Gaussian Orders for High Power Bessel Beams

Ultra short pulse lasers offer unique possibilities in material processing applications. The extremely high intensities in the focus of a femtosecond or picosecond laser pulse cause non-linear absorption inside an otherwise transparent material. This leads to a highly localized deposition of energy and can be used to create tailored modifications inside the bulk of the material without damaging the surface. The induced structures can for example be arranged as a breaking layer for cleaving glass. Tailored beam-shaping techniques can significantly improve this process. Using Bessel-Gaussian focal lines create long and thin modifications which dramatically improve the breaking process and quality of the resulting edge surface. To create the Bessel-Gaussian beams an axicon, as shown in Fig. 1, is typically used in high power applications due to its high damage threshold.