Wavelength beam combining of VECSELs using multiplexed volume Bragg gratings in a compound cavity

Author

Lu, C.A. ; Newell, T.C. ; Glebov, L. ; Balakrishnan, G.

Author_Institution

Air Force Res. Lab., Kirtland AFB, NM, USA

Volume

51

Issue

6

fYear

2015

fDate

3 19 2015

Firstpage

508

Lastpage

510

Abstract

A method of wavelength beam combining to enhance the total output brightness of vertical external cavity surface emitting lasers (VECSELs) using multiplexed volume Bragg gratings (MVBGs) is presented. The MVBGs are designed to introduce wavelength-specific feedback for the 1020 nm near-infrared wavelength VECSELs to achieve both spectral stabilisation and beam combining effects. In conjunction with the compound cavity arrangement, a combined output of >6 W is achieved with >98% combining efficiency using two VECSELs. The beam combining scheme produces near-diffraction limited output with enhanced spectral density and wavelength-stabilised characteristics.

Keywords

Bragg gratings; laser beams; laser cavity resonators; laser feedback; light diffraction; surface emitting lasers; VECSEL; compound cavity; compound cavity arrangement; multiplexed volume Bragg gratings; near-diffraction limited output; spectral density; spectral stabilisation; total output brightness; vertical external cavity surface emitting lasers; wavelength 1020 nm; wavelength beam combining; wavelength-specific feedback;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electronics Letters

Publisher

iet

ISSN

0013-5194

Type

jour

DOI

10.1049/el.2014.4111

Filename

7062102