Hui ZHOU, Song LI, and Guoxing ZHENG

School of Electronic Information, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China

(Received September 30, 2010; Accepted November 10, 2010)

The phase mode of reflected beam (PMRB) is the most important factor for determining the far field diffraction pattern (FFDP) with laser retroreflector (LR). Based on the structure of LR and ray tracing method, the additional optical path difference of the light beam with various incident angle passed through no ideal LR is induced. Combined with the expression of incident beam, the mathematical PMRB is established for LR with dihedral angle and flatness error under different incident beam conditions. The FFDP with the phase mode is simulated for Champ laser retroreflector, which validates the correctness of PMRB.

Key words: laser retroreflector, ray tracing, phase mode, far field diffraction pattern