Phase-locked array of 25 broad-area lasers

Volker Raab; Ralf Menzel

doi:10.1117/12.469500

6 June 2002 Phase-locked array of 25 broad-area lasers

Volker Raab, Ralf Menzel

Proceedings Volume 4629, Laser Resonators and Beam Control V; (2002) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.469500
Event: High-Power Lasers and Applications, 2002, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

We will report experimental results on the coherent laser operation of a bar of broad area lasers. The array is 1 cm wide and consists of 25 lasers of 200 micrometer width each. Under normal conditions the lasers possess no mutual coupling and, therefore, emit incoherently. The resulting beam quality is correspondingly very low and typically more than 2000-fold diffraction-limited. To coherently couple the emitters we operate them in an external cavity. Inside the cavity a multiplexing and mutual coupling is achieved by means of a 16 level diffractive optic (DO) designed as a 1:25 beam splitter. We show that a stable phase-locked laser mode can build up inside the resonator. Its pronounced central angular emission lobe possesses a beam quality of approximately 60 times diffraction limit. In a passive setup, in which the internal dynamics of the broad area lasers can be suppressed by use of a seeding laser of good beam quality (M²<2), the central emission lobe is better than five times diffraction-limited.

Citation Download Citation

Volker Raab and Ralf Menzel "Phase-locked array of 25 broad-area lasers", Proc. SPIE 4629, Laser Resonators and Beam Control V, (6 June 2002); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.469500

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