摘要 |
A light tunnel (24) comprising a hollow light tunnel body (30) or a solid light tunnel body (80) having a central axis (A1 or A2), a reflective surface (42 or 84) facing the axis, and an output end (54 or 94) having an edge (60 or 106) with a chamfered surface (120 or 130) formed on the edge. The chamfered surface is designed to alter the reflective properties of the reflective surfaces of the light tunnel body near the output end so as to reduce or eliminate edge ringing from the light tunnel body edge. In the case of a knife-edge (340) placed at the output end of the light tunnel body, knife-edge ringing is eliminated by providing a light source (310) in the form of a laser with a large number of spatial modes (M2>30). The present invention is expected to be most useful in cases where time-averaging or other interference-eliminating means prove impossible or impractical, such as with applications requiring only one or a few high-irradiance light pulses that need to uniformly irradiate a workpiece.
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