INCREASING THE SPATIAL AND SPECTRAL BRIGHTNESS OF LASER DIODE ARRAYS
First Claim
1. An apparatus, comprising:
- an array of laser emitters for emitting a plurality of laser beams;
at least one fast-axis collimating lens positioned to collimate the fast axis of said plurality of laser beams to produce first collimated beams;
means for collimating the slow axis of said first collimated beams to produce second collimated beams;
means for correcting smile error in said second collimated beams to produce corrected beams;
a partial reflector operatively located to reflect each corrected beam of said corrected beams back into the respective laser emitter of said laser emitters from which said each corrected beam was emitted; and
a diffractive coupler located between said means for correcting smile errors and said partial reflector.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Techniques for increasing the spatial and spectral brightness of laser arrays such as laser diode arrays are provided. Passive cavity designs are described that produce wavefront phase locking across the face of large arrays. These designs enable both spatial and spectral selectivity in order to coherently link the individual emitters that make up the diode array. Arrays of customized micro-optics correct aberrations of the individual apertures of the arrays while highly spectrally selective partial reflectors overcome the deleterious effects of inhomogeneities in local thermal environments of the individual emitters that are being phase locked together. Using these two technologies, along with intracavity diffractive beam coupling, solves two long standing problems that have prevented effective and robust phase locking of laser diode arrays.
48 Citations
38 Claims
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1. An apparatus, comprising:
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an array of laser emitters for emitting a plurality of laser beams; at least one fast-axis collimating lens positioned to collimate the fast axis of said plurality of laser beams to produce first collimated beams; means for collimating the slow axis of said first collimated beams to produce second collimated beams; means for correcting smile error in said second collimated beams to produce corrected beams; a partial reflector operatively located to reflect each corrected beam of said corrected beams back into the respective laser emitter of said laser emitters from which said each corrected beam was emitted; and a diffractive coupler located between said means for correcting smile errors and said partial reflector. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38)
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27. A method, comprising:
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emitting a plurality of laser beams from an array of laser emitters; collimating the fast axis of said plurality of laser beams to produce first collimated beams; collimating the slow axis of said first collimated beams to produce second collimated beams; correcting smile error in said second collimated beams to produce corrected beams; diffractively coupling said corrected beams; and reflecting a portion of each corrected beam of said corrected beams back into the respective laser emitter of said laser emitters from which said each corrected beam was emitted.
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Specification