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Beam combiner on Optics studio

  • February 3, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 620 views

Hello All, 

I needed some help with optics design for a beam combiner setup I am working on. Essentially, I am combining two laser beam paths onto one path using a thin film polarizer. The first laser passes through a set of mirrors and lenses and a half waveplate before being incident on a thin film polarizer. The second laser follows a different beam path with a pair of mirrors and then incident on a thin film polarizer at a brewster angle of 56deg. My questions is that how can I model three different configs where I have the laser 1 path in config 1, laser 2 in config 2 and combined in config 3. Laser 1 goes through different surfaces compared to laser 2 before being incident on the polarizer so can I insert/ delete surfaces specific only to one configuration? Thanks in advance. 

1 reply

Kevin Scales
En-Lightened
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  • En-Lightened
  • 185 replies
  • February 3, 2021

Hi Joveria,

Generally two sources at the same time is not possible in sequential systems, but if you are able to use non-sequential systems you can do so easily. Ignoring surfaces in a given configuration is the preferred method for handling multiple-path systems like beam splitters, etc. The multi-configuration operand IGNM and IGNR will ignore one or a range of surfaces, and can be set to 1 (for ignore) or 0 (don't ignore) for each configuration.

You may wish to read the Knowledgebase article How to model a beam splitter in sequential mode for general ideas and methods.

Best,

Kevin