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

Abstract

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.