Polarization-independent broadband dielectric bilayer gratings for spectral beam combining system

Abstract

We report on a polarization-independent all-dielectric trapezoidal bilayer grating with broadband and high diffraction efficiency. The bilayer trapezoidal grating ridge on a reflector consists of an HfO2 layer and a SiO2 layer. The theoretical −1st order efficiencies of the grating are more than 95% with wavelength range from 1010nm to 1080nm for both TE and TM polarizations. The fabrication tolerances depending on the HfO2 and SiO2 layer grating ridge depths are enough to obtain the designed grating using current craft. The fabricated grating with exceeding 94% efficiency from 1000nm to 1085nm measured by a non-polarization laser has been fabricated and applied in a spectral beam combining external cavity to combine eight beams into one beam output with 10.77kW.