Internal phase control of fiber laser array based on photodetector array

Coherent beam combining(CBC) of fiber laser array is a promising technique to realize high output power while maintaining near diffraction-limited beam quality. To implement CBC, an appropriate phase control feedback structure should be established to realize phase-locking. In this paper, an innovative internal active phase control CBC fiber laser array based on photodetector array is proposed. The dynamic phase noises of the laser amplifiers are compensated before being emitted into free space. And the static phase difference compensation of emitting laser array is realized by interference measurement based on photodetector array. The principle of the technique is illustrated and corresponding simulations are carried out, and a CBC system with four laser channels is built to verify the technique. When the phase controllers are turned on, the phase deviation of the laser array is less than λ/20, and ~ 95% fringe contrast of the irradiation distribution is obtained. The technique proposed in this paper could provide a reference for the system design of a massive high-power CBC system.

Beam Steering Analysis in Optically Phased Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser Array

Beam steering in implant defined coherently coupled vertical cavity surface emitting laser （VCSEL） arrays is simulated using the FDTD solution software. Angular deflection dependent on relative phase differences among elements, inter-element spacing, element size and emitted wavelength is analyzed detailedly and systematically. We design and fabricate 1×2 implant defined VCSEL arrays for optimum beam steering performance. Electroni- cally controlled beam steering with a maximum deflection angle of 1.6° is successfully achieved in the 1 × 2 VCSEL arrays. The percentage of the power in the central lobe is above 39% when steering. The results show that the steering is controllable. Compared with other beam steering methods, the fabrication process is simple and of low cost.

Numerical and experimental study on coherent beam combining of fibre amplifiers using simulated annealing algorithm

We present the numerical and experimental study on the coherent beam combining of fibre amplifiers by means of simulated annealing （SA） algorithm. The feasibility is validated by the Monte Carlo simulation of correcting static phase distortion using SA algorithm. The performance of SA algorithm under time-varying phase noise is numerically studied by dynamic simulation. It is revealed that the influence of phase noise on the performance of SA algorithm gets stronger with an increase in amplitude or frequency of phase noise; and the laser array that contains more lasers will be more affected from phase noise. The performance of SA algorithm for coherent beam combining is also compared with a widely used stochastic optimization algorithm, i.e., the stochastic parallel gradient descent （SPGD） algorithm. In a proof-of-concept experiment we demonstrate the coherent beam combining of two 1083~nm fibre amplifiers with a total output power of 12~W and 93% combining efficiency. The contrast of the far-field coherently combined beam profiles is calculated to be as high as 95%.

Coherent combining of a fiber laser array via cascaded internal phase control technique

We experimentally demonstrated a cascaded internal phase control technique.A laser array with 12 channels was divided into three sub-arrays and a stage array,and phases of the sub-arrays and the stage array were locked by four phase controllers based on the stochastic parallel gradient descent(SPGD)algorithm,respectively.In this way,the phases of the whole array were locked,and the visibility of the interference pattern of the whole emitted laser array in the far field was∼93%.In addition,the technique has the advantage of element expanding and can be further used in the high-power coherent beam combination(CBC)system due to its compact spatial structure.

Digital generation of super-Gaussian perfect vortex beams via wavefront shaping with globally adaptive feedback

High-intensity vortex beams with tunable topological charges and low coherence are highly demanded in applications such as inertial confinement fusion(ICF) and optical communication. However, traditional optical vortices featuring nonuniform intensity distributions are dramatically restricted in application scenarios that require a high-intensity vortex beam owing to their ineffective amplification resulting from the intensity-dependent nonlinear effect. Here, a low-coherence perfect vortex beam(PVB) with a topological charge as high as 140 is realized based on the super-pixel wavefront-shaping technique. More importantly, a globally adaptive feedback algorithm(GAFA) is proposed to efficiently suppress the original intensity fluctuation and achieve a flat-top PVB with dramatically reduced beam speckle contrast. The GAFA-based flat-top PVB generation method can pave the way for high-intensity vortex beam generation,which is crucial for potential applications in ICF, laser processing, optical communication and optical trapping.

The Computer Analysis of the Excimer Laser Beam Intensity Uniformization by Rotational Lens Array

The excimer laser has important applications in many fields. Because of its non-uniform intensity distribution there are some limits in applications. This paper introduces rotational lens array to improve intensity distributions. The intensity variation is reduced to 1 percent by computer simulation.

Laser beam induced current microscopy and photocurrent mapping for junction characterization of infrared photodetectors

For non-destructive optical characterization, laser beam induced current(LBIC) microscopy has been developed into as a quantitative tool to examine individual photodiodes within a large pixel array. Two-dimensional LBIC microscopy, also generally called photocurrent mapping(PC mapping), can provide spatially resolved information about local electrical properties and p-n junction formation in photovoltaic infrared(including visible light) photodetectors from which it is possible to extract material and device parameters such as junction area, junction depth, diffusion length, leakage current position and minority carrier diffusion length etc. This paper presents a comprehensive review of research background, operating principle, fundamental issues, and applications of LBIC or PC mapping.

Spherical distribution structure of the semiconductor laser diode stack for pumping

A semiconductor laser diode stack is used for pumping and 8 semiconductor laser diode arrays of the stack are put on a sphere,and the output of every bar is specially off-axis compressed to realize high coupling efficiency.The output beam of this semiconductor laser diode stack is shaped by a hollow duct to the laser active medium.The efficiency of the hollow light pipe,which is used for semiconductor laser diode stack coupling,is analyzed by geometric optics and ray tracing.Geometric optics analysis diagnoses the reasons for coupling loss and guides the design of the structure.Ray tracing analyzes the relation between the structural parameters and the output characteristics of this pumping system,and guides parameter optimization.Simulation and analysis results show that putting the semiconductor laser diode arrays on a spherical surface can increase coupling efficiency, reduce the optimum duct length and improve the output energy field distribution.

Experiments and analysis of gold disk targets irradiated by smoothing beams of Xingguang Ⅱ facilities with 350 nm wavelength

Gold disk targets were irradiated using focusing and beam smoothing methods on Xingguang (XG-Ⅱ) laser facilities with 350 nm wavelength,0.6 ns pulse width and 20-80 Joules energies. Laser absorption,light scattering and X-ray conversion were experimentally investigated. The experimental results showed that laser ab-sorption and scattered light were about 90% and 10%,respectively,under focusing irradiation,but the laser absorption increased 5%-10% and the scattered light about 1% under the condition of beam smoothing. Compared with the case of fo-cusing irradiation,the laser absorption was effectively improved and the scattered light remarkably dropped under uniform irradiation; then due to the decrease in laser intensity,X-ray conversion increased. This is highly advantageous to the in-ertial confinement fusion. However,X-ray conversion mechanism basically did not change and X-ray conversion efficiency under beam smoothing and focusing irra-diation was basically the same.