Large angle nonmechanical laser beam steering at 4.6 µm using a digital micromirror device.

Large angle, nonmechanical beam steering is demonstrated at 4.62 µm using the digital light processing technology. A 42-deg steering range is demonstrated, limited by the field-of-view of the recollimating lens. The measured diffraction efficiency is 8.1% on-axis and falls-off with a sin² dependence with the steering angle. However, within the 42-deg steering range, the power varied less than 25%. The profile of the steered laser beam is Gaussian with a divergence of 5.2 mrad. Multibeam, randomly addressable beam steering, is also demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]