Beam Combination and Control - Andrusyak 2 Fiber laser system with kW - level spectrally - combined output

Beam combining techniques have become an important tool in design of high-power highbrightness laser systems [1]. Maximum power that can be obtained from single high-power amplifiers is usually limited by thermal distortion of active medium and beam quality degradation in solid-state lasers or non-linear effects and active fiber damage in fiber lasers. Beam combining offers an alternative solution to obtaining high-power high-brightness radiation. Output beams of an array of lower-power laser sources operating at normal conditions can be combined by external optical elements, producing a single beam with increased power. Assuming that combining elements have high energy throughput and introduce no significant beam distortion, brightness of the combined beam is increased by a factor equal to the number of combined channels.