Coherence management for microlens laser beam homogenizers

We suggest an optical system for beam homogenization and speckle reduction of spatially highly coherent Laser beams. The new method is applicable to laser beams with moderate temporal coherence. Based on the finite temporal coherence the spatial coherence is reduced prior to the homogenizer component. The new design was experimentally tested for ArF-Excimer laser at 193nm. For this Deep UV application we used silicon micromirrors in combination with fused silica microlenses with a pitch of 150 mum. In contrast to former fly's eye homogenizers for laser beams the new method employs a large number of subapertures even for lasers with high spatial coherence. This results in a speckle free and uniform intensity distribution in the target plane. Furthermore the pupil filling can be increased drastically. Experimental results for a DUV microscopy application are presented and discussed.