Abstract

Identification of single reflection and multiple reflection ghosts in high power laser systems is essential for the safeguard of components, equipment, and personnel. Most ray trace programs require the user to model each path of reflections as an independent optical system. The OPTIC AD program permits us to trace rays in a non-sequential fashion, to calculate the remaining energy in a ray, to split a ray at a partially reflecting surface, and to display all the ray paths simultaneously. We have used the program to look for ghost foci in high power laser systems and in interferometers. We will show the results of several of these analyses. The results will indicate how we can remove from consideration ghost rays that exceed a user specified number of reflections or whose energy is below a user specified lower limit.

© 1992 Optical Society of America