Synchronization and coherent addition of three pulsed fiber lasers by mutual injection and phase modulation

The coherent beam addition of pulsed fiber lasers is an effective way to improve the average power and the peak pulse power. We demonstrate a new architecture based on mutual injection and phase modulation to generate synchronous pulsed fiber lasers. Firstly, we realize the synchronization of the pulses of three fiber lasers using this technique. Secondly, coherent addition of three synchronous pulsed fiber lasers is obtained. Experimental results show that the three fiber lasers are phase locked and have good temporal and spatial coherence under mutual injection locking. This method can be extended to combine more beams.     

基于公共环形腔耦合的光纤激光器相干合成技术

 为提高光纤激光器无源自调整相干合成阵列的效率、稳定性和可扩展性,提出了基于公共光纤环形腔耦合与单模光纤滤波的光纤激光器相干合成方案。将多个2×2的光纤耦合器分别插入各单元激光器的谐振腔,利用耦合器余下的端口,两两相连构成公共环形耦合腔。采用单模光纤滤波技术,提高了各输出激光束之间相位锁定的稳定性。利用该方案在实验上实现了三路光纤激光器的被动锁相输出,实验测得的远场干涉光斑、输出功率及光谱均表明该方案适于构建性能较好的光纤激光器相干合成阵列。     

利用全光纤耦合环实现三路光纤激光器的相位锁定

利用三个2×2的光纤耦合器按一定规则联接成一个全光纤耦合环,该耦合环将三个独立的掺铒光纤激光器连成一个锁相阵列. 由于耦合环的引入,锁相阵列的整体损耗减小,且三个单元激光器之间可以进行有效的能量相互注入耦合,进而实现阵列的锁相输出. 实验中观察到的远场干涉图样和锁相前后的输出光谱均表明三路光纤激光器实现了相位锁定,当三路抽运源的功率均为100 mW时,获得了92 mW的稳定相干输出. 关键词： 光纤激光器 相干合成 光纤耦合器 相位锁定     

两个光纤激光器的互相注入锁定

光纤激光器的相干合成技术是实现高功率、高亮度光纤激光系统的重要技术途径.利用分束器分光使两个光纤激光器的能量互相注入，从而使两个光纤激光器达到锁相锁模实现相干输出. 实验研究表明：在独立运行的情况下，两个光纤激光器的远场光斑只是两个激光器光强的简单叠加；在互相注入锁定的情况下，两个光纤激光器的远场光斑是具有高对比度的干涉条纹，并得到两个激光器的输出模式总为异相模.这与理论分析的结果相一致. 关键词： 光纤激光器 相干合成 锁相     

谱线和耦合系数对光纤激光器相互注入锁定的影响

相互注入锁定是相干合成技术中最具发展前景的方案之一. 在两个光纤激光器相互注入锁定的基础上,利用可调节光纤光栅改变其中一个激光器的中心谱线和利用不同的分束器改变两个激光器间的耦合系数,同时监测两个激光器的远场光斑和谱线,判断激光器谱线和耦合系数对相互注入锁定的影响. 通过理论和实验得到：提高耦合系数可以提高锁定的频率差;两个激光器的谱线越接近锁定的效果越好,当激光器的谱线超过一定范围时,两个激光器将不能被锁定. 关键词： 光纤激光器 相干合成 相位锁定     

两路双包层光纤激光器互注入锁相实验研究

提出了一种利用45°半透半反分束镜和角锥反射器实现两路光纤激光器的能量相互注入,从而获得相干合成激光输出的新方法,分析了其锁相原理.在实验上成功实现了两路独立振荡双包层光纤激光器的互注入锁相输出,在远场观察到了清晰稳定的干涉条纹（可见度约0.57）,获得了超过10W的相干合成激光输出,功率合成效率约为76%.实验表明,这种互注入锁相方法可以在更高功率条件下运行,是光纤激光相干合成领域一种有前途的新技术. 关键词： 光纤激光器 相干合成 互注入锁相     

两路关联光纤激光器互注入锁相实验

基于角锥互注入锁相相干合成方案,利用光纤Bragg光栅（R=85％@1064nm）作为两路光纤激光器的共用腔镜,实现了两路光纤激光器相关联,进一步提高了激光的互注入能量。采用外腔结构,较容易实现了两路光纤激光器的能量互注入锁相。在实验上观察到了远场清晰稳定的干涉条纹（可见度超过0．8）,获得了功率合成效率约为80％的线偏振相干激光输出。     

Tolerance on tilt error for coherent combining of fiber lasers

Limited by the precision of optical machining and assembling, the optical axes of lasers in an array cannot be strictly parallel to each other, which will result in the beam quality degradation of the combined beam. The tolerance on tilt error for coherent combining of fiber lasers is studied in detail. The complex amplitude distribution in the far field for the Gaussian beam with tilt angle is obtained by a novel coordinate transform method. Effect of tilt error on coherent combining is modelled analytically. Beam propagation factor is used to evaluate the effect of coherent combining. Numerical results show that for ring-distributed fiber laser array with central wavelength A and geometry size D, if the root-mean-square （RMS） value of the tilt error is smaller than 0.72A/D, the energy encircled in the diffraction-limited bucket can be ensured to be more than 50% of the value when there is no tilt error. The results are helpful to the designing and manufacturing of fiber array for coherent combining.     

基于空间滤波的光纤激光被动相位锁定技术研究

基于空间滤波的被动相位锁定,对掺Yb光纤激光阵列的相干组束进行了理论和实验研究.分析了基于空间滤波光反馈相位锁定的原理,研究了远场相干光斑Strehl比与激光波长及光谱带宽的关系.建立了二维四路掺Yb光纤放大器阵列的被动相位锁定实验系统,实现了稳定的相干耦合激光输出,远场光斑Strehl比为0.77.测得输出激光光谱中单个纵模的带宽约为9.1 GHz,与理论计算符合较好. 关键词： 光纤激光 相干合成 环形腔     

Mutual injection locking and coherent beam combining of two thulium doped fiber lasers

We demonstrate which we believe the first investigation on mutual injection-locking and coherent combining of two thulium-doped fiber lasers. Mutual coherence between the two fiber lasers is established by means of mutual coupling through two 3 dB couplers. High combining efficiency of 99% for two fiber laser has been obtained, and the fringe contrast of the intensity pattern at the receiving plane is as high as 93%. The solution to scale to high power coherent beam combining is briefly discussed.     

Stable all-fiber dual-wavelength thulium-doped fiber laser and its coherent beam combination

We demonstrate which we believe the first investigation on mutual injection-locking and coherent combining of two thulium-doped fiber lasers. Mutual coherence between the two fiber lasers is established by means of mutual coupling through two 3 dB couplers. High combining efficiency of 99% for two fiber laser has been obtained, and the fringe contrast of the intensity pattern at the receiving plane is as high as 93%. The solution to scale to high power coherent beam combining is briefly discussed.     

Experimental study on phase-locking of two high-power all-fiber lasers

By using a novel mutual injection technique, phase-locking and coherent combining of two high-power all-fiber lasers are realized and experimentally demonstrated. Steady interference strips with high visibility of 46% are observed. The coherent combined 407 W CW output power with a power-combining efficiency of up to 98% is obtained. The laser array works well with excellent stability. In the long time of high-power operation no thermal distortions or damages are observed. The proposed technique can be used to further scale up the coherent combined output power of high-power fiber lasers.     

Coherent and incoherent combining of fiber array with hexagonal ring distribution

Beam combining of fiber array with hexagonal ring distribution is studied in detail. The theoretical analysis and numerical calculation results are given to illustrate the propagation properties of the resulting beam through free space. A comparison between the coherent and the incoherent case shows that high peak irradiance and good beam quality for coherent combining can be obtained in the far field. The effect of phase errors and the beam quality M² factor are also studied. Results indicate that the element numbers should be increased to achieve high power and the space between adjacent elements should be reduced to maintain good beam quality, which is basically the same for both coherent and incoherent beam combining.     

134-W phase locking of two-dimensional four-fiber lasers with improved self-imaging resonator

We experimentally demonstrate the phase locking of a two-dimensional （2D） array of four fiber lasers using an improved self-imaging resonator with a spatial filter. The high visibility interference round stripes of the coherent beam profile are observed. The coherent output power of the fiber array exceeds 134 W. Tile entire system operates quite stably, and no thermal effects observe in the spatial filter, indicating that the coherent output power can be increased using this method.     

Experimental study of phase-locking of two photonic crystal fiber lasers

Two photonic crystal fiber (PCF) lasers are phase-locked by using self-imaging resonator techniques. Obvious and steady interference strips are observed even without using spatial filter in high power operation, which demonstrates the advantages of pure single-mode PCF lasers in coherent beam combining. The maximum coherent output power of 95.8 W is obtained with coupling efficiency of 90.2%.     

Effect of mutual-injection ways on phase locking of arrays of two mutually injected fiber lasers: theoretical investigation

The effect of mutual-injection ways on phase locking of arrays of two mutually injected fiber lasers is studied theoretically. The phase-locked states of arrays with different ways of mutual injection are given analytically. It is found that different ways of mutual injection will result in different phase-locked states. The relationships between phase locking and ways of mutual injection are also discussed. The results indicate that the unconditionally phase-locked states can only be formed at the reflectors (i.e., fiber Bragg gratings [FBGs] or output faces) linking directly with the couplers. It is also found that only some of these arrays can make two output laser beams phase-locked unconditionally, while the other arrays can only make two output laser beams phase-locked with some conditions satisfied.     

光纤激光相干合成高速高精度相位控制器

基于随机并行梯度下降算法（SPGD）和现场可编程逻辑阵列（FPGA）设计制作了相干合成（CBC）相位控制器。理论分析表明,该控制器单次迭代速率大于1.125 MHz,对于2路和16路相干合成,其平均控制带宽的理论值分别大于70 kHz和9 kHz,与现有的SPGD算法相位控制器相比有了量级上的提高。利用该控制器进行了验证性实验,表明该控制器能够实现高速高精度相位控制。当利用相位控制器对两路激光的相位进行锁定时,目标圆孔内能量提高了1.51倍,远场光斑对比度提高了5.29倍。     

Selective injection locking of a multi-mode semiconductor laser to a multi-frequency reference beam

Injection locking is a well known and commonly used method for coherent light amplification. Usually injection locking is obtained on a single-mode laser injected by a single-frequency seeding beam. In this work we show that selective injection locking of a single-frequency may also be achieved on a multi-mode semiconductor laser injected by a multi-frequency seeding beam, if the slave laser provides sufficient frequency filtering. This selective injection locking condition depends critically on the frequency detuning between the free-running slave emission frequency and each injected frequency component. Stable selective injection locking to a set of three seeding components separated by 1.2 GHz is obtained. This system provides an amplification up to 37 dB of each component. This result suggests that, using distinct slave lasers for each frequency line, a set of mutually coherent high-power radiation modes can be tuned in the GHz frequency domain.     

两路光纤激光器自组织相干合成实验研究

 建立了两路光纤激光器自组织相干合成的理论模型，并进行实验验证。结果表明，通过能量的相互注入，可以实现光纤激光器的自组织相干合成，合成效率达到92%。当外界基本没有干扰时，远场光斑为稳定、高对比度的干涉条纹，激光器阵列输出模式为异相模，与理论分析的结果一致；当外界环境存在轻微干扰时，实验出现条纹移动现象，输出模式也不再是恒定的异相模。对外界干扰对自组织相干合成的影响进行了数值分析，结果表明：外界干扰的幅度与频率越大，两束激光的相位差的变化幅度与频率也就越大；当外界干扰超过一定程度，两束激光之间的相位差将不能被锁定，始终处于变化状态。     

Phase locking and coherent combining of high-order-mode fiber lasers

Efficient free-space configurations for phase locking and coherent addition of two fiber lasers, each operating with a high-order mode, are presented. Experimental results reveal that when the two fiber lasers are coupled, the polarization and modal distribution of one are imposed on the other. Coherent addition with a combining efficiency larger than 90% was achieved.