MId-wave infrared PIC-based coherent beam combining

In response to the Army SBIR Topic A20-021, IRGLARE is pleased to propose the development of a monolithic MWIR photonic circuit (PIC) with a footprint of less than 1cm2 that coherently combines optical outputs from an array of high power Quantum Cascade Lasers (QCLs) into a single very high brightness beam employing the tree array configuration. Our projections show that total CW output power of up to 50W from a single 16-element array is possible in this configuration and even a single Y-junction emitter is  capable of producing 10W in a nearly diffraction-limited beam. Critically, a high-frequency modulation can be achieved by independently controlling bias across the short stem section.