High-power fiber laser combination technology

Abstract

Research on fiber laser combination is discussed briefly in this paper. High-power double clad-fiber laser beam combination technology is introduced and different kinds of fiber laser beam combination and coherent combination technologies are evaluated. Tapered fused bundle (TFB) couplers are used in laser combine for higher power. In this paper, the theory and progress in TFB coupling are introduced. The experiment on our self-fabricated TFB is presented. The efficiency of the fiber coupler exceeded 70% and increased as the input power went up. A maximum total output power of 689 W was obtained, with an efficiency of 74%. The fiber coupler displayed stability during the course of the experiment, without any cooling provided.

Keywords

fiber laser / combination technology / fiber coupler / tapered fused bundle (TFB) / fabrication

References

[1] Fan T Y, Sanchez A. Coherent (phased array) and wavelength (spectral) beam combining compared. Proceedings of SPIE, 2005, 5709: 157-164

[2] Loftus T H, Liu A, Hoffman P R, Thomas A, Norsen M, Hamilton C E, Honea E. 258 W of spectrally beam combined power with near-diffraction limited beam quality. Proceedings of SPIE, 2006, 6102: 61020S

[3] Sevian A, Andrusyak O, Ciapurin I, Venus G, Glebov L. Spectral beam combining with volume Bragg gratings: cross-talk analysis and optimization schemes. Proceedings of SPIE, 2006, 6216: 62160V

[4] Ciapurin I V, Glebov L B, Glebova L N, Smirnov V I, Rotari E V. Incoherent combining of 100-W Yb-fiber laser beams by PTR Bragg grating. Proceedings of SPIE, 2003, 4974: 209-219

[5] Boullet J, Sabourdy D, Desfarges-Berthelemot A, Kermène V, Pagnoux D, Roy P, Dussardier B, Blanc W. Coherent combining in an Yb-doped double-core fiber laser. Optics Letters, 2005, 30(15): 1962-1964

[6] Kozlov V A, Hernández-Cordero J, Morse T F. All-fiber coherent beam combining of fiber lasers. Optics Letters, 1999, 24(24): 1814-1816

[7] Shirakawa A, Sekiguchi T, Ueda K. Scalable coherent beam combining of fiber lasers. In: Proceedings of Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics. 2003, CWO1

[8] He B, Lou Q H, Zhou J, Dong J X, Wei Y R, Xue D, Qi Y F, Su Z P, Li L B, Zhang F P. High power coherent beam combination from two fiber lasers. Optics Express, 2006, 14(7): 2721-2726

[9] Shirakawa A, Saitou T, Sekiguchi T, Ueda K. Coherent addition of fiber lasers by use of a fiber coupler. Optics Express, 2002, 10(21): 1167-1172

[10] Zhou Y, Liu L P, Etson C, Abranyos Y, Padilla A, Chen Y C. Phase locking of a two-dimensional laser array by controlling the far-field pattern. Applied Physics Letters, 2004, 84(16): 3025-3027

[11] Bruesselbach H, Minden M, Rogers J L, Jones D C, Mangir M S. 200 W self-organized coherent fiber arrays. In: Proceedings of Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics. 2005, 1: 532-534

[12] Wetter A, Faucher M, Lovelady M, Séguin F. Tapered fused-bundle splitter capable of 1 kW CW operation. Proceedings of SPIE, 2007, 6453: 64530I

[13] Séguin F, Wetter A, Martineau L, Faucher M, Delisle C, Caplette S. Tapered fused bundle coupler package for reliable high optical power dissipation. Proceedings of SPIE, 2006, 6102: 61021N

[14] Goloborodko V, Keren S, Rosenthal A, Levit B, Horowitz M. Measuring temperature profiles in high power optical fiber components. Applied Optics, 2003, 42(13): 2284-2288

[15] Evgeny M D, Igor A B, Artem A F. Destruction of silica fiber cladding by fiber fuse effect. In: Proceedings of Optical Fiber Communication Conference. 2004, TuB4

[16] Martan T, Honzátko P, Kaňka J, Noyotný K. Workplace for manufacturing devices based on optical fiber tapers. Proceedings of SPIE, 2007, 6609: 66090K

[17] Cronin A, McAtamney C, Sherlock R, O'Connor G M, Glynn T J. Laser-based workstation for the manufacture of fused biconical tapered coupler devices. Proceedings of SPIE, 2005, 5827: 505-514

[18] Bayle F, Meunier J P. Efficient fabrication of fused-fiber biconical taper structures by a scanned CO₂ laser beam technique. Applied Optics, 2005, 44(30): 6402-6411

[19] Kakarantzas G, Dimmick T E, Birks T A, Le Roux R, Russell P St J. Miniature all-fiber devices based on CO₂ laser microstructuring of tapered fibers. Optics Letters, 2001, 26(15): 1137-1139

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg