Coherent beam combining of 137 W 2 × 2 fiber amplifier array

We demonstrate coherent beam combining of two-dimensional fiber amplifier arrays with a total of 137 W output power using stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm. Compact all-fiber polarization-maintained single frequency fiber amplifier chains are developed and four fiber amplifiers are arranged to 2 × 2 laser array with a fill factor of 70% in the near-field. Active phase control is implemented by a digital signal processor (DSP) based SPGD controller. The fringe visibility of the coherent combined beam profile is as high as 81% when the system is closed-loop controlled despite perturbations of the environment.     

Experimental demonstration of coherent beam combining over a 7 km propagation path

We demonstrate coherent combining (phase locking) of seven laser beams emerging from an adaptive fiber-collimator array over a 7 km atmospheric propagation path using a target-in-the-loop (TIL) setting. Adaptive control of the piston and the tip and tilt wavefront phase at each fiber-collimator subaperture resulted in automatic focusing of the combined beam onto an unresolved retroreflector target (corner cube) with precompensation of quasi-static and atmospheric turbulence-induced phase aberrations. Both phase locking (piston) and tip-tilt control were performed by maximizing the target-return optical power using iterative stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) techniques. The performance of TIL coherent beam combining and atmospheric mitigation was significantly increased by using an SPGD control variation that accounts for the round-trip propagation delay (delayed SPGD).     

32路光纤激光相干阵列的相位锁定

报道了32路光纤激光相干阵列的相位锁定实验研究。搭建了32路光纤激光相干阵列实验系统,基于现场可编程逻辑阵列(FPGA)设计制作了高速高精度相位控制器。当相位控制器执行随机并行梯度下降(SPGD)算法对各路激光的相位进行锁定时,相干阵列输出的激光功率与不进行相位锁定时相比提高了约26倍。     

Optimization of erbium-doped fiber MOPA laser

An erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) constructed in a master oscillator and power amplifier (MOPA) configuration is analyzed. The pump powers for the fiber cavity laser and the booster amplifier stages are managed properly to achieve maximal pump conversion efficiency. Our design achieves a pump conversion efficiency of 91.4%, corresponding to a quantum efficiency of 96.6%, for a 1565.8 nm MOPA laser pumped by a total power of 300 mW at 1480 nm. The optimized MOPA laser shows a 25% enhancement in the pump conversion efficiency, compared to a non-MOPA fiber laser. A side lobe suppression ratio of 48 dB for the optimized MOPA laser is observed.     

多单元光纤激光阵列的倾斜控制实验研究

本文结合光纤激光阵列技术的发展趋势,介绍一种基于大模场面积光纤的自适应光纤光源准直器的研制进展,搭建七单元光纤激光阵列,进行平行发射体系下阵列间的倾斜控制实验,并初步探索了基于目标在回路的共形发射体系下阵列间的倾斜控制.最后,在三级全光纤放大链路的主振荡-功率放大系统中,完成了两路10W量级光纤激光阵列的倾斜控制及锁相.为在实际大气环境下应用光纤激光阵列技术提供了参考.     

Optical phase control for MMW sparse aperture upconversion imaging

The random phase errors of the optical carriers are discussed and controlled for passive millimeter-wave sparse aperture （PMMW SA） upconversion imaging. A two-channel model is set up for analyzing charac- teristics of the phase errors, and an active optical control technique based on stochastic parallel gradient decent algorithm （SPGD controller） is proposed to calibrate the phase errors. To demonstrate the feasi- bility of the SPGD controller, simulations are performed and an experimental system with a two-channel fiber array is set up. Simulation and experiment results show that the SPGD controller can effectively and rapidly compensate the phase errors of the optical carrier, and the accuracy of the phase control is sufficient for imagine svstems.     

两路120 W固体激光高光束质量相干合成

通过主动相位控制实现了两路固体激光器的高光束质量相干合成输出,总输出功率达到240W。建立了两路120W板条激光放大器,通过光束整形获得了高光束质量方形光斑,并实现了高占空比光束拼接,填充因子高于92.4%。研制了光轴一致性探测与控制系统,采用基于压电陶瓷的快反镜实现了光轴的高精度闭环控制,两束激光光轴一致性优于2μrad(RMS)。设计了基于现场可编程门阵列(FPGA)的相位探测与控制系统,用随机并行梯度下降算法(SPGD)锁定了两束激光的活塞相位。相位闭环后,远场光斑峰值提高到开环状态的1.7倍,为理想值的84%。合成光束主瓣包含67%的激光总能量,光束质量(BQ)为1.1。     

1.8-kW simultaneous spectral and coherent combining of three-tone nine-channel all-fiber amplifier array

We demonstrate simultaneous spectral and coherent combining of a three-tone nine-channel all-fiber amplifier array with a total output power of 1.8 kW in a master-oscillator power-amplifier (MOPA) configuration. Three single-frequency seed lasers are spectrally combined and employed as a master oscillator for an all-fiber power amplifier array, which provides robust performance on suppressing of the stimulated Brillouin scattering effect. Three-stage power amplifiers are employed to scale the power from tens of mW to more than 300 W. Active phase locking of the nine-channel spectrally combined amplifiers is implemented by using the stochastic parallel gradient descent algorithm. In the experiment, a nine-channel spectrally combined MOPA array is coherently combined with a total output power of 1.8 kW. The power in the main lobe in closed loop is 4.6 times the value in open loop, and an average visibility of more than 85 % of the interference pattern at the receiving plane is obtained. By only adding pump power in the main amplifiers, the total power of the array could scale up to more than 3 kW.     

Phase-Locked Fibre Array for Coherent Combination and Atmosphere Aberration Compensation

We report a fibre amplifier array that not only achieves coherent beam combination by compensation of phase noises of fibre amplifier, but also accomplishes correction of atmosphere aberration. It is of master-oscillatormultiple-amplifier （MOPA） configuration, which can be phase-locked by the multidither principle or heterodyne detection principle. First laboratory experiments of atmosphere aberration compensation of a three-element fibre amplifier array are reported. The atmosphere aberration is created by a phase screen in the experiment. The phase changes of the beam, which are introduced by the fibre amplifier and the phase screen, are both detected by the heterodyne detection method. Phase modulators are controlled to compensate for the phase in the three paths. No matter whether there is a phase screen producing atmosphere aberration or not, the dim dynamic interference fringes in the far field turn to a clear and stable pattern, and the peak intensity is maximized. It is indicated that the fibre amplifier array is phase-locked, and coherent combination of the three beams is achieved. It can be used not only to obtain high power fibre laser array but also in laser space communication.     

基于随机并行梯度下降算法光纤激光相干合成的高精度相位控制系统

随机并行梯度下降(SPGD)算法是实现大功率主振荡功率放大器相干合成的有效手段之一.分析了SPGD算法用于相干合成的基本原理,设计了基于SPGD算法的相位控制系统,给出了基于该SPGD控制器的相干合成实验结果.理论分析表明,SPGD算法控制器的迭代速率为200kHz,对于两路相干合成的平均控制带宽大于12.5kHz,最优控制精度可达1/179个波长.实验表明,SPGD控制器能够实现高速的相位控制.在相位噪声幅度大于1/10个波长、频率为3kHz的情况下,有效地实现了两路激光的相位锁定,相位残差控制在1/25个波长内.     

Adaptive correction of vortex laser beam in a closed-loop system with phase only liquid crystal spatial light modulator

We propose and demonstrate the wave front correction of a vortex laser beam by using dual phase only liquid crystal spatial light modulators (LC-SLMs) and a stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm. One phase only LC-SLM is used to generate vortex laser beam by loading spiral phase screen onto the wave front of input quasi-Gaussian beam. The other phase only LC-SLM under SPGD controller based on the subzone control method adaptively compensates the wave front of vortex laser beam. Numerical simulation and experimental results show that after correction, vortex doughnut like beam is focused into a beam with airy disk pattern distribution in the far field. The adaptive corrections of vortex laser beam with different optical topological charges are studied. The results show that the optical topological charge has little influence on adaptive correction. The powers in the main lobe of far field intensity distributions of vortex laser beams with different optical topological charges are all greatly improved by adaptive correction. The technique proposed in this paper can be used in optical communication, relay mirror and atmospheric turbulence correction.     

Active coherent beam combining of diode lasers

We have demonstrated active coherent beam combination (CBC) of up to 218 semiconductor amplifiers with 38.5?W cw output using up to eleven one-dimensional 21-element individually addressable diode amplifier arrays operating at 960?nm. The amplifier array elements are slab-coupled-optical-waveguide semiconductor amplifiers (SCOWAs) set up in a master-oscillator-power-amplifier configuration. Diffractive optical elements divide the master-oscillator beam to seed multiple arrays of SCOWAs. A SCOWA was phase actuated by adjusting the drive current to each element and controlled using a stochastic-parallel-gradient-descent (SPGD) algorithm for the active CBC. The SPGD is a hill-climbing algorithm that maximizes on-axis intensity in the far field, providing phase locking without needing a reference beam.     

LD侧泵浦Nd：YAG板条双程功率放大器初步研究

 对二极管激光侧泵浦Nd：YAG板条双程功率放大器进行了初步的研究,给出了激光器的数值模拟结果,建立了二极管侧面泵浦Nd:YAG板条激光主振荡-多程放大(MOPA)系统;在100Hz重复频率时,实验获得单脉冲能量为51.9mJ的输出,光束质量M ²小于2,脉冲能量起伏小于2%, 实验结果与数值计算结果相符合。     

Adaptive optics correction based on stochastic parallel gradient descent technique under various atmospheric scintillation conditions: numerical simulation

An adaptive optics system utilizing a Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor and a deformable mirror can successfully correct a distorted wavefront by the conjugation principle. However, if a wave propagates over such a path that scintillation is not negligible, the appearance of branch points makes least-squares reconstruction fail to estimate the wavefront effectively. An adaptive optics technique based on the stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) control algorithm is an alternative approach which does not need wavefront information but optimizes the performance metric directly. Performance was evaluated by simulating a SPGD control system and conventional adaptive correction with least-squares reconstruction in the context of a laser beam projection system. We also examined the relative performance of coping with branch points by the SPGD technique through an example. All studies were carried out under the conditions of assuming the systems have noise-free measurements and infinite time control bandwidth. Results indicate that the SPGD adaptive system always performs better than the system based on the least-squares wavefront reconstruction technique in the presence of relatively serious intensity scintillations. The reason is that the SPGD adaptive system has the ability of compensating a discontinuous phase, although the phase is not detected and reconstructed.     

百瓦级全光纤结构单频掺铥主振荡功率放大器

报道了平均功率超过百瓦的单频掺铥全光纤结构主振荡功率放大器。使用线宽小于100kHz、中心波长为1.97μm的单频种子源进行级联放大,主放大器的斜率效率为50%。监测放大器的回光功率和光谱,没有发现受激布里渊散射以及其他非线性效应。通过增加泵浦功率,可以获得更高功率的掺铥单频放大输出。     

Coherent beam combination of adaptive fiber laser array with tilt-tip and phase-locking control

We present an experimental study on tilt-tip(TT) and phase-locking(PL) control in a coherent beam combination(CBC) system of adaptive fiber laser array.The TT control is performed using the adaptive fiber-optics collimator(AFOC),and the PL control is realized by the phase modulator(PM).Cascaded and simultaneous controls of TT and PL using stochastic parallel gradient descent(SPGD) algorithm are investigated in this paper.Two-fiber-laser-,four-fiber-laser-,and six-fiber-laser-arrays are employed to study the TT and PL control.In the cascaded control system,only one high-speed CMOS camera is used to collect beam data and a computer is used as the controller.In a simultaneous control system one high-speed CMOS camera and one photonic detector(PD) are employed,and a computer and a control circuit based on field programmable gate array(FPGA) are used as the controllers.Experimental results reveal that both cascaded and simultaneous controls of TT using AFOC and PL using PM in fiber laser array are feasible and effective.Cascaded control is more effective in static control situation and simultaneous control can be applied to the dynamic control system directly.The control signals of simultaneous PL and TT disturb each other obviously and TT and PL control may compete with each other,so the control effect is limited.     

大气环境下基于目标照明回光的视轴误差校正实验研究

理论分析了激光瞄准系统中视轴误差与目标照明回光的关系. 介绍了同时具备激光束发射与瞄准偏差校正功能的自适应光学器件––自适应光纤准直器的原理. 搭建了光束经200 m水平大气传输的激光瞄准实验平台. 基于二维目标和三维目标的照明回光, 利用随机并行梯度下降算法分别实现了不同初始视轴误差下的瞄准闭环校正. 实验结果表明, 闭环后二维目标和三维目标的视轴校正残差评价参数分别小于6%和10.8%, 校正精度均在理论范围内. 最后, 分析了算法参数对动目标瞄准的影响.     

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%.     

The 260-W coherent beam combining of two compact fibre amplifier chains

Coherent beam combining of two fibre amplifier chains with a total power of 260 W in a compact system using the stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm is demonstrated. A 150 MHz linewidth fibre laser is built and introduced for high-power amplification to mitigate stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). Compact high-power amplifier chains are built with low power all-fibre system and high-power bulk free-optics fibre amplifiers. When the total power is about 260 W, active phase-locking of two high-power amplifiers is demonstrated using the SPGD algorithm. In closed-loop, the power in the main lobe increases 1.68 times, the visibility is increased from 0 to 0.62, and the phase residual error is less than λ/10.     

窄线宽全光纤激光器实现666 W高功率输出

搭建了一台主振荡功率放大（MOPA）结构的窄线宽全光纤激光器。利用噪声相位调制技术将单频激光线宽展宽至0.3 GHz,通过四级放大器结构对10 mW的窄线宽种子激光进行放大,获得了功率为666 W的窄线宽激光输出。该窄线宽激光器输出功率仅受限于泵浦功率,增加泵浦功率有望进一步提高输出功率。