Beam Shaping for Relay Mirrors

Relay mirrors offer a method of extending the range and efficacy of laser weapons systems by providing a platform that can relay the high power beam from the source to a target at a lower cost than building more laser weapons. Most laser weapons’ platforms use a Cassegrain aperture telescope to project the high-power beam to a target. Diffraction causes power in the projected beam to move out beyond the edge of the receiving aperture and into the central obscuration of the receiving Cassegrain telescope. This paper presents a method of increasing the power coupling between a projected beam and a receiving telescope by warping the phase of the projected beam and shows that the spatial frequency and amplitude of the phase aberration is consistent with being integrated with the adaptive optics control loop on the source beam projector.