Total internal reflection-refraction beam expander

Abstract Beam expanders being used presently have complex structure and none is perfect. A novel beam expander is proposed first. The beam expander can magnify (or decrease) the diameter of incident laser beam according to the theory of total internal reflection–refraction (TIR-R) principle. The characteristic of the beam expander was studied by using ray-tracing method and computer simulation. The beam expander can propagate a parallel laser beam along the propagation axis and would not change the propagation direction of the beam. For a nonparallel beam the Lagrange invariant (the product of diameter and divergence angle) is not constant. This beam expander would be an effective device in some applications.