High Energy Laser (HEL) Beam Combination

Aculight proposes a new spectral beam combining (SBC) system to utilize higher power, broader linewidth, fiber lasers to meet the demanding requirements of high energy laser (HEL) applications. The system is scalable to up to 100 kW output with diffraction limited beam quality by spectrally combining a number of high power fiber lasers operating at slightly different wavelengths. The proposed approach is insensitive to the linewidth of individual lasers and allows the linewidth of individual lasers to be at least 100 times broader than that of the existing SBC systems. Increasing the linewidth of the individual lasers significantly reduces fiber nonlinear effects and allows multi-kW to be generated from the individual fiber lasers. As a result, fewer individual lasers are needed to achieve 100 kW near-diffraction-limited combined beam and a more compact, efficient and robust system can be built for HEL applications. We plan to complete a detailed design and analysis on the proposed system and demonstrate >8 W combined output with diffraction-limited beam quality by combining two broad linewidth fiber lasers. During the Phase II, we will demonstrate up to 1000 W combined output with near-diffraction-limited beam quality using four high power fiber lasers.