[Physics] Beam waist at extremely long distances

diffractionoptics

A beam of light of wavelength $\lambda$ and width $W$ needs to be focused at a distance $D$ to a spot not bigger than $w_S$, which stands for 'width of sail'.

Now, the diffraction limit says it clearly that a coherent beam will diverge at a rate no less than $\frac{\lambda}{W}$, and that the minimal target spot width will be $\sqrt{D \lambda}$. But my understanding from the comments in this question is that this applies in the far-field limit far away from the focal point, so my doubt is that if this hard bound on the spot size can be avoided by replacing the collimated beam by a focusing beam with an extremely long focal length.

So, my question boils down to the following: can the fundamental diffraction limit on spot size, be replaced with the extremely difficult, but possible in principle engineering problem of creating a focusing element with extremely high focal lengths, in such a way that for a specific length, the target spot size can be made smaller

A concrete scenario to make things more clear: the wavelength is $\lambda = 10^{-6}$ meters. The distance to the target is $D = 10^{12}$ meters ($10^{18}$ wavelengths). If the beam converges at focal length $D$, my hope is to keep the beam spot (which in this case coincides with the beam waist) at $10^2$ meters (which is 10 times smaller than the target beam spot if the laser would have been collimated, instead of focusing at $D$)

Best Answer

Gaussian beam focussing with the large waist on the lens can be described the easiest with the relationship $$z_o \cdot z_o' = f^2,$$ where the $z_o$ are the Rayleigh lengths (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_length) before and after the lens (assumption is that the bigger beam has the waist on the lens).

The beauty here is that geometric means are nice to remember. You have a large distance (the collimated side of the beam $z_o$), a very short distance (the focussed side of the beam $z_o'$) and a medium distance, the focal length f.

This can be derived trivially from the ABCD matrix rules for Gaussian beams and the ABCD matrices of a lens and a distance and is equivalent to the more common formula: $$ D' =\frac{ 4 \lambda f }{ \pi D},$$ where $D$ and $D'$ are the beam diameters before and after focus.

If your beam spot is at the waist D', then the mirror you are using to collimate it there, has to be much, much bigger. If your waist is indeed at the target spot, the focal length is $10^{12}$ m. With $D'= 10^2$ m, you get for the mirror size at $10^4$ m diameter.

So your problem is actually the other way around. Your only waist is on the mirror (a very large focal length is indistiguishable from infinity). Know what the largest telescope/mirror is that you can get (say $D=2 m$), then calculate the spot size in the far field.

$$ \omega(z) = \omega_0 \cdot \sqrt{1 + (\frac{z}{z_r})^2} .$$ I"m getting $ 3 \cdot 10^5 m = 300 km $ for the waist radius on target with your assumptions and an outgoing waist radius of 1 m.