EP0723323A2
Expired / Lapsed
EP
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Compound laser system for high power density
Assignee: Ceramoptec GmbH
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Filing: 1995-12-20
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2015-12-20
Abstract
Abstract The present invention provides compound laser system for generating beams of high brightness and high power density by constructive phase coherent combination of the beams generated by a number of individual sources of coherent radiation. In one preferred embodiment, it provides a system for the delivery of high powered output from a set of inexpensive, comparatively low-powered diode lasers and comprises three subsystems: a diode laser subsystem which is the source of power for the system; a combiner subsystem which combines the output of the diode lasers; and, an optional delivery subsystem which may be needed to deliver the combined output to its desired destination for industrial or medical applications. The combiner subsystem may be implemented in its entirety as an Integrated Optical Combiner, a single component, performing all the combiner subsystem's functions. Different preferred embodiments of Phase Coherent Integrated Optical Combiners are proposed. One of them employs an optical fiber having a shaped core to provide efficient matching to the geometry of typical laser diodes. Each diode laser's output of a diode laser array is captured by a single optical fiber with a core whose cross-sectional shape is contoured so that major and minor axes of a laser diode's output shape are not larger than major and minor axes of a optical waveguide and whose numerical apertures are closely matched to the numerical apertures in the directions of corresponding axes.
Inventors
- 👤 Wolfgang Neuberger
- 👤 V.A. Sychugov
- 👤 N.M. Lyndin
- 👤 S.G. Krivoshlykov
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-11-04 11:24
CPC Classifications
H; H01; H01S; H01S3/00; H01S3/23; H01S3/2383; G; G02; G02B; G02B6/00; G02B6/10; G02B6/12; G02B6/122; G02B6/125; G02B6/24; G02B6/26; G02B6/28; G02B6/2804; G02B6/2817; G02B6/42; G02B6/4201; G02B6/4249; H01S5/00; H01S5/40; H01S5/4025; G02B6/2808; G02B6/2813; G02B6/4204; G02B6/4214; H01S5/4031; H01S5/4062
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 11
Claim 1
Independent Claim
79 words
A compound laser system having at least two active elements including lasers or optical amplifiers, enhancing the power of optical beam, and having at least one means of internal optical feedback, characterized by the active elements having means of optical connection of said optical beams to a phase-coherent combiner; the combiner performing constructive superposition of the optical beams to add their intensities, and the combiner having a means of external optical feedback providing feedback for all the active elements.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
84 words
A laser system according to claim 1, further characterized in that the active elements are optical parametric amplifiers based on frequency conversion in a nonlinear medium pumped with all external source; the means of internal optical feedback includes at least one mirror or Bragg reflector inside or at the surface of a nonlinear medium of the optical amplifiers or is provided by coupling between signal and idler waves in the nonlinear medium for the case of counter-propagating wave configuration of the optical parametric amplifiers.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
68 words
A laser system according to claims 1 or 2, further characterized by having the means of optical connection and the phase-coherent combiner be integrated optical waveguides fabricated on a common substrate, where the integrated optical combiner includes cascaded Y-junctions having a single output or a section of multimode optical waveguide; and the means of external feedback is a mirror or Bragg reflector at the output of the combiner.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
31 words
A laser system according to claims 1, 2 or 3, further characterized by having the active elements be semiconductor lasers, integrated optical micro-lasers or amplifiers, or optical fiber lasers or amplifiers.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
107 words
A compound laser system according to claim 1, further characterized by having the active elements be a diode laser array, the means of internal feedback are mirrors of each individual laser of the diode laser array, the means of optical connection are optical fibers with each having an essentially rectangular input cross section of its core and with each being able to transmit polarized light, the optical combiner is phase-coherent and is a cascaded Y-junction of the optical fibers or a section of multimode optical fiber having an essentially rectangular core cross section, and the Y-junction has an output fiber with an essentially round core cross section.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
153 words
A flexible compound laser system characterized by having a diode laser subsystem with at least two diode lasers or an array of diode lasers whose output is non-circular in shape, a means of optical connection from the diode laser subsystem to an optical combiner being a set of optical waveguides with each diode laser having its output captured by an optical waveguide, each optical waveguide having a core cross section that is contoured in shape matching the cross section of a beam irradiated by the diode lasers and having means to match its numerical aperture to that of the diode laser, the optical combiner combining individual beams of captured diode laser light from the optical waveguides into a single output which has a geometry that is substantially a superimposition of the input waveguides causing the output to substantially maintain or increase an initial input power density, and a means for delivering said output.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
126 words
A laser system according to claim 6, further characterized by having the means of delivering the system's output be a delivery subsystem with an input port which is an optical waveguide whose cross-sectional core shape is a standard round shape or is contoured with or without a lens between the output port and the delivery subsystem input port with or without a specially-shaped end on the delivery subsystem input such that any divergence in the combiner subsystem emitted output is equalized between the combiner subsystem output's major and minor axes and by having the means to match the numerical apertures of the optical waveguides in the optical combiner to that of the diode laser be input ports of the optical waveguides with shaped ends or lenses.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
161 words
A laser system according to claims 6 or 7, in which the optical combiner subsystem is further characterized by being an integrated single component, an Integrated Optical Combiner, with a body having channels and voids with optical waveguide material in the channels and voids and with input ports and an output port where the optical waveguide material in each input port has a core cross-sectional shape substantially matching the output shape of the laser diodes and where optical waveguide material in the output port has a cross-sectional shape contoured to be substantially geometrically equivalent to a superimposition of said input ports so that the beams at the output port substantially maintains an initial input power density, and where the input ports of the Integrated Optical Combiner are arranged so that each port is substantially aligned with a corresponding diode laser output whether or not the individual diode lasers are linearly arranged or rotated about the major axis of each diode laser.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
34 words
A laser system of claims 6 or 7, where the optical combiner is further characterized by having its optical waveguides be individual optical fibers which are combined by a cascade-like arrangement of optical combiners.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
87 words
A laser system according to claim 8 where the Integrated Optical Combiner is further characterized by having one or more optical fibers with a complex shape such that there is at least one flat side surface and one side surface of such a shape that light irradiated by each diode laser passing through the flat side surface is reflected by the shaped side surface in the direction of the axis of the fiber collecting the light from all the diode lasers which overlap with the complex fiber.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
120 words
A laser system according to claim 8, where the Integrated Optical Combiner is characterized by having at least one multi-core optical fiber with a low index cladding surrounding at least two cores where each core has a rectangular cross section and a diode laser array having at least two individual diode lasers to which the multi-core fiber is butt-joined after removing the cladding from one side of the fiber in a region of the butt-joining so that light beams irradiated by each individual diode laser are coupled into a corresponding core of the multi-core fiber and each of the multi-core fiber cores has a means to reflect the beams in the direction along a longitudinal axis of the multi-core fiber.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
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