Spectrally Beam-Combined Fiber Lasers for High-Average-Power Applications

Spectrally beam-combined (SBC) laser systems, wherein multiple laser outputs are spectrally multiplexed into a single high-quality beam, are rapidly advancing the power scaling frontier for high-average-power beam-combined fiber lasers with near-perfect beam quality. We describe two- and three-channel SBC fiber lasers featuring 93% power-combining efficiency, near-diffraction-limited beam quality, average output powers in excess of 500 W, and excellent prospects for additional power scaling. To our knowledge, this level of optical performance represents the highest combination of beam quality and average power obtained so far for a beam-combined fiber laser system.