Spectral beam combination of laser diode with fiber coupled output

Abstract

We researched the external cavity spectral beam combination (SBC) of laser diode (LD) with pigtail output. Two laser diodes with pigtail output, center wavelength of 976nm, and about 45% of electric-to-optical (e-o) conversion efficiency was employed to achieve spectral beam combination. This method demonstrated the feasibility of closed loop SBC of LD with pigtail. The free running spectrum, single laser spectrum with locked wavelength, after combination spectrum were measured. It showed that the spectral width of free running and tunnel range of single laser locked is about 12nm, 6nm respectively. The feedback efficiency of external cavity is about 1.55% when the transmission of cavity output mirror is about 30%. The combination power of 1.63W was obtained, the o-o(optical-to-optical) transferable efficiency is about 25%. The deterioration factor beam quality is about 1.2×, meanwhile, the efficiency loss of SBC and the reason of deterioration of beam quality were analyzed due to the internal loss of external cavity, the transmission loss of grating. In this way, the space stitching, configuration of single chip can transfer to fiber arrangement and organization, due to flexibility and miniaturization of fiber, that will provide a novel thinking for SBC of LD in high power direct application.