Analysis of multiwavelength coherent beam combining effect

Abstract

The combination effect of multiwavelength active coherent beam combination (CBC) is investigated theoretically. The dependence of the combination effect on the optical path control precision, spectral width, wavelength number, and channel number is revealed. In the case of small optical path variance, the combination effect approximately decreases in quadratic form with wavelength number N, spectral width Δν, and optical path variance σ increasing. In the case of large optical path variance, the combination effect is independent of the optical path variance and the spectral width. The larger the wavelength number is, the smaller the Strehl ratio expectation is, and it finally degenerates to the incoherent combination. The necessity of optical path control is discussed. This study is helpful for multiwavelength CBC system design and the combination effect estimation.