Coherent beam combining of hybrid phase control in master oscillator-power amplifier configuration

A novel scalable architecture for coherent beam combining with hybrid phase control involving passive phasing and active phasing in master oscillator-power amplifier configuration is presented. Wide-linewidth mutually injected passive phasing fibre laser arrays serve as master oscillators for the power amplifiers, and the active phasing using stochastic parallel gradient descent algorithm is induced. Wide-linewidth seed laser can suppress the stimulated Brillouin scattering effectively and improve the output power of the fibre laser amplifier, while hybrid phase control provides a robust way for in-phase mode coherent beam combining simultaneously. Experiment is performed by active phasing fibre laser amplifiers with passive phasing fibre ring laser array seed lasers. Power encircled in the main-lobe increases1.57 times and long-exposure fringe contrast is obtained to be 78% when the system evolves from passive phasing to hybrid phasing.     

Coherent Beam Combination of Two Polarization Maintaining Ytterbium Fibre Amplifiers

We investigate coherent beam combination of fibre laser beams by phase locking. Phase noise of a polarization maintaining ytterbium fibre amplifier is inspected with a fibre interferometer. In a feed back control loop, two fibre polarization maintaining ytterbium amplifiers are phase locked and coherent combined when the phase noise is properly controlled by a LiNO3 phase modulator.     

All-fiber coherent beam combining with phase stabilization via differential pump power control

Coherent beam combining enables power scaling beyond the limits of single amplifiers. Therefore, improving the performance and simplicity of coherent combination techniques is of great interest for many high power applications. Here, we show all-fiber coherent beam combining of two ytterbium doped amplifiers with and without a dedicated phase actuator and a total output power up to 25 W. Instead of a dedicated phase actuator, we directly controlled the two ytterbium amplifiers to also stabilize their relative phase. We compared the performance of this method with phase stabilization using two piezo driven fiber stretchers. In both cases, power noise was dominated by the single amplifier.     

Coherent Beam Combining of Three Watt-Level Fiber Amplifiers Using a DSP-Based Stochastic Parallel Gradient Descent Algorithm

We present an experimental study on coherent beam combining of three watt-level fiber amplifiers using a stochas- tic parallel gradient descent （SPGD） algorithm. Phase controlling is performed by running the SPGD algorithm on a digital-signal-processor （DSP） chip with a voltage updating rate of 16500 times per second. Energy encircled in the target pinhole is 2.62 times more than that in an open loop. The combining efficiency is as high as 87%.     

Coherent beam combining of pulsed fiber lasers with hybrid phase control

We demonstrate a scalable architecture for coherent combining of all-fiber pulsed lasers with hybrid phase control involving passive phasing and active phasing for the first time. Synchronized and passive phased pulsed laser array is built by intra-activity phase modulation. Active phase control on the passive phased pulsed laser array using stochastic parallel gradient descent algorithm provides stable in-phase coherent beam combining pattern in a turbulent atmosphere. The fringe visibility is increased from 0 two 0.43 and the power encircled in the main-lobe is 1.616 times increased when the system evolves from passive phasing to hybrid phasing. The architecture can be easily scaled up to high power by increasing power of each individual laser, number of laser elements and introduction of power amplifiers, which will lead a promising way for scaleable high power coherent beam combining of pulsed lasers.     

基于偏振自适应和主动相位控制的相干合成的实验研究

进行了非保偏放大器与保偏放大器的相干合成的实验研究。通过随机并行梯度下降（SPGD）算法对非保偏放大器进行偏振自适应控制,使非保偏放大器输出激光的消光比达到11.5 dB,与保偏放大器在同一偏振方向上的光功率占总功率的93.4%。利用单抖动法进行非保偏放大器与保偏放大器的主动相位控制,实现相干合成。实验结果表明:SPGD算法能够有效实现偏振自适应控制,偏振自适应控制前后相干合成远场的条纹对比度从80.1%提高到87.2%,相干合成的效果提升明显;通过增加参与合成的放大器路数,并在各路激光中引入多级功率放大器,能够得到更高的合成功率输出。     

模拟退火算法光纤放大器相干合成

提出了利用模拟退火算法实现相干合成的思路。对利用模拟退火算法实现多路光纤放大器相干合成进行了数值模拟,验证了方法的有效性,并分析了算法收敛速度与合成光束数目的关系。进行了两路W量级光纤放大器相干合成的实验,结果表明,模拟退火算法能够有效控制各路光纤激光的相位,系统闭环将目标圆孔内的能量提高了1.8倍,并使得目标圆孔内能量大于理想值80%的概率从19.4%提升到了51.3%,取得了较为明显的相干合成效果。     

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.     

Coherent beam combining of two W-level fiber amplifiers in turbulence atmospheric environment based on stochastic parallel gradient descent algorithm

We demonstrate coherent beam combining of two W-level fiber amplifiers based on stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm at 8 m distance in a simulated turbulence atmospheric environment. A photodetector was used to get the coherent optical intensity of the main-lobe from a pinhole, based on the intensity and the SPGD algorithm, the phase controlling was performed by the digital signal processor. In order to simulate the atmospheric environment, turbulence was induced in the free space of the light path by fans and air-conditions in the lab. Experimental result shows that the system performs well for long-time both with and without the simulating turbulence in close-loop, combining efficiency as high as 84.25% with turbulence and 84.85% without turbulence were realized. Visibility increased from near zero in open-loop to 0.432 with turbulence and 0.505 without turbulence in close-loop and the residual phase error is controlled to be less than λ/18. The probability of energy encircled in the main-lobe to be more than 70% of its ideal value was increased from 18.66 to 93.71% without turbulence and from 14.80 to 92.49% with turbulence when the system evolves from open-loop to close-loop.     

Active coherent beam combination of two high-power single-frequency nanosecond fiber amplifiers

We report on active coherent beam combining of two single-frequency nanosecond fiber amplifiers by using stochastic parallel gradient descent algorithm. Each fiber amplifier produces an average power of more than 100 W by using three-stage cascaded amplification. The two laser beams are actively phase-locked with a total average power of 215.8 W, producing ~8 ns pulses at 10 MHz repetition rate. The contrast of the far-field intensity pattern of the coherently combined beam is more than 83%.     

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。     

Tiled-aperture coherent beam combining of two high-power fibre amplifiers

We demonstrate coherent beam combining of two tiled-aperture single-frequency fibre amplifiers with a total output power of 29.65~W by using the multi-dithering technique. The two laser beams are packaged closely by using free-space mirrors side by side into a tiled-aperture with a near-field fill factor of 62\%. Active phase control of the amplifier is performed on commercially available digital lock-in amplifiers. Experimental results show that the power contained in the main-lobe in closed-loop is 1.72 times greater than that in open-loop, which is 86\% for the ideal case. The fringe contrast of the far-field fringe pattern is as high as 80\% when the system is in closed-loop. The beam quality of the combined beam is computed to be BQ = 1.48. The whole system in closed-loop performs well in a long-time observation.     

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.     

Coherent beam combining of two fiber amplifiers using stochastic parallel gradient descent algorithm

We demonstrate the coherent beam combining of fiber amplifiers using a stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm, producing a total output power of 23 W. Active phase control on each amplifier is performed by running the SPGD algorithm on a DSP chip with updating rate of almost 100 kHz. Experimental results show that power encircled in the target pinhole in closed-loop mode is 1.85 times more than that in open-loop mode, which is 92% of the ideal case. The fringe contrast of the far-field fringe pattern is as high as 92% when the system is in closed-loop mode. The whole system in closed-loop mode performs well in a long-time observation.     

All-fiber phase actuator based on an erbium-doped fiber amplifier for coherent beam combining at 1064 nm

Active phase control in fiber amplifiers is of considerable interest for low-noise single-frequency amplifiers and for coherent beam combining. We demonstrate phase control at 1064 nm by use of an erbium-doped fiber. We investigated the phase shift by guiding the beam through an erbium-doped fiber amplifier in a Mach-Zehnder configuration and applied the results to stabilize the relative phase of two ytterbium-doped fiber amplifiers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of an all-fiber coherent beam combining at 1064 nm employing an erbium-doped fiber as a phase actuator.     

基于随机并行梯度下降算法的光束相干合成技术

介绍了随机并行梯度下降算法的基本原理,对算法流程进行了仿真验证,并对其中随机扰动幅度和增益系数两个关键参数进行了仿真分析。分析结果表明,这两个参数存在一个最适区间,只有在此区间内取值时算法才能有效收敛。以仿真分析为依据开展了光纤激光的相干合成实验,结果表明光束相干合成效果显著,有效地验证了仿真分析的结果。     

Coherent beam combining master oscillator-power of hybrid phase control in amplifier configuration

A novel scalable architecture for coherent beam combining with hybrid phase control involving passive phasing and active phasing in master oscillator-power amplifier configuration is presented. Wide-linewidth mutually injected passive phasing fibre laser arrays serve as master oscillators for the power amplifiers, and the active phasing using stochastic parallel gradient descent algorithm is induced. Wide-linewidth seed laser can suppress the stimulated Brillouin scattering effectively and improve the output power of the fibre laser amplifier, while hybrid phase control provides a robust way for in-phase mode coherent beam combining simultaneously. Experiment is performed by active phasing fibre laser amplifiers with passive phasing fibre ring laser array seed lasers. Power encircled in the main-lobe increases1.57 times and long-exposure fringe contrast is obtained to be 78% when the system evolves from passive phasing to hybrid phasing.     

用于共孔径相干合成的衍射光学元件设计

分析了衍射光学元件实现共孔径相干合成的物理过程,建立了基于衍射光学元件的共孔径相干合成数学模型,推导了合成光束复振幅与入射光束和衍射光学元件相位分布之间的关系。提出用合成光束强度分布的均匀性作为评价函数的优化方法,获得了一维衍射合束器的相位分布。与文献报道的衍射光学元件分束器相比,可获得更高的合成效率。采用模拟退火算法结合随机并行梯度下降算法优化合束器设计,提高了计算效率,获得了多束衍射合束器的相位分布和合成效率。分析了单子束失效及合束器像差对合成效率的影响,结果表明:随着合束数量的增加,单子束失效对合成效率的影响逐渐减小;若使合成效率退化小于5%,衍射光学元件的波像差均方根值应控制在λ/28以内。     

Design of phase plates for shaping partially coherent beams by simulated annealing

Taking the Gaussian Schell-model beam as a typical example of partially coherent beams, this paper applies the simulated annealing （SA） algorithm to the design of phase plates for shaping partially coherent beams. A flow diagram is presented to illustrate the procedure of phase optimization by the SA algorithm. Numerical examples demonstrate the advantages of the SA algorithm in shaping partially coherent beams. An uniform flat-topped beam profile with maximum reconstruction error RE 〈 1.74% is achieved. A further extension of the approach is discussed.