Propagation characteristics of the Yb-doped fiber lasers after spectral beam combining by the VBGs

The propagation model for the spectral beam combining system of five Yb-doped fiber laser beams by the volume Bragg gratings (VBGs) has been built up. Considering the surface distortion by thermal effect, the intensity of an individual beam passing through the spectral beam combining system by the VBGs with deformation has been analyzed numerically and iteratively by using finite-different and sparse matrix methods, and the intensity of combined beam has been studied by the principle of incoherent superposition. Consequently, according to the intensity second-order moments method, the M²-factor of the combined beam has been calculated. The effects of deformation of the VBGs on the intensity, the combining efficiency, the M²-factor and the power in the bucket of the combined beam have been analyzed quantitatively. It can be shown that the effects of the deformation of the VBGs on the intensity distribution of combined beam become more and more obvious with the increasing of the deformation of the VBGs. The results show that the surface distortion of the VBGs due to high-power lasers dramatically degrades both the beam quality of the combined beam and the combining efficiency of the spectral beam combining system.