Afocal Systems for Laser Guide Stars

For astronomical telescopes, laser guide stars are often used for correction of the atmosphere distortion. Such artificial star images are usually at tens of kilometers away by high-power laser beams. In order to accurately design the optical system to generate and even to control the size of the laser guide star, the diffraction effect of the laser beam must be considered. In this example, we show how to analyze and design afocal systems for laser guide stars.