COHERENTLY PHASE COMBINED, HIGH CONTRAST, PULSED OPTICAL FIBER AMPLIFIER ARRAY

摘要

A pulsed fiber array laser system that has actively stabilized coherent beam combination (CBC) is disclosed. The active stabilization is accomplished using both piston phase control and intra-pulse phase control, allowing a much greater increase in pulse energy. Further stabilization using intra-pulse amplitude control is also disclosed. A chirp profile can be written on the output pulse to enable specific applications. An amplitude profile of the amplifier array may optionally be tailored to match to a reference electrical pulse. Using the current invention, a much smaller number of amplifier chains will be needed to achieve certain pulse energy, resulting in a system with lower complexity, lower cost, smaller size, less weight, and higher reliability.