Coherent beam combination method and device for external cavity semiconductor laser array
Technical Field
The invention belongs to the technical field of coherent beam combination of semiconductor laser arrays, and particularly relates to a coherent beam combination method and device of an external cavity semiconductor laser array.
Background
The semiconductor laser has the characteristics of high electro-optical efficiency, compact structure, low production cost and long service life, and is a leading-edge hotspot of laser research from the birth date. The biggest problem that currently limits the wide application of high-power semiconductor lasers is that the beam quality of the high-power semiconductor lasers is poor. Due to the limitation of beam quality, high-power semiconductor lasers are rarely applied to occasions with high requirements on beam quality, such as laser drilling, welding, cutting and the like.
The most important method used at present for improving the brightness of high-power semiconductor lasers is a spectral beam combination technology. In recent years, a spectrum beam combination technology is greatly developed in semiconductor laser beam combination, the method has greatly improved the brightness of a semiconductor laser array, however, in the process of advancing the semiconductor laser to higher power, the semiconductor laser is limited by the gain bandwidth of the semiconductor, so that people cannot realize the combination of a larger amount of semiconductor lasers. For example, the line width of a single semiconductor laser controlled by a bragg grating widely used at present is about hundreds of pm, the gain of the semiconductor laser is about tens of nm, all the semiconductor lasers can be combined, the number of the semiconductor lasers does not exceed 100, the working wavelength of each light emitting unit needs to be strictly stable, and due to the limitation of limited gain bandwidth and frequency stability requirement of the semiconductor, the spectrum beam combining technology based on the single bar semiconductor laser is relatively slow to develop at present. In addition, the spectrum beam combining technology generally needs a more complex coating technology as a basis, and the realization difficulty is also higher. Although as early as 2012 the company TeraDiode reported a high brightness 2000W direct semiconductor laser based on spectral beam combining technology. However, the development of high beam quality semiconductor lasers on the kilowatt level is still immature at present, and the lasers are not widely applied in the market. No report is made about a method for solving the problem of limited gain bandwidth.
Besides the spectrum beam combination technology, the semiconductor laser coherent beam combination technology also has great capability and space for improving the overall brightness of the semiconductor laser array. The passive coherent beam combination is mainly characterized in that a Talbot external cavity structure is constructed, so that field distribution of a periodic structure can be constructed in the cavity, each period works in a light emitting unit period independently, and the coherent field distribution with a determined phase relation is formed integrally. The most serious limitation of the technology to the power and brightness of semiconductor laser is that the phase locking capacity of a Talbot field is limited, when the working current is higher, the gain is larger, the spontaneous radiation amplification effect exists in a single light-emitting unit, the spontaneous radiation amplification further causes the generation of parasitic oscillation in the light-emitting unit, and incoherent parasitic oscillation inhibits coherent oscillation, so that the beam combination efficiency is reduced; ② the random phase and intensity fluctuations of the semiconductor laser can lead to a deterioration of the stable self-reproduced Talbot image. The coherent beam combination realized by using the Talbot image needs to accurately control the phase fluctuation amplitude of each light-emitting unit in the laser array, has higher precision requirement and higher realization difficulty. The problems of (i) and (ii) have not been solved effectively for a long time. Fig. 1(a) is a basic principle schematic diagram of a coherent beam combining of semiconductors based on a Talbot cavity, and the results reported by the domestic and foreign main research units about the coherent beam combining technology are shown in fig. 1(b), fig. 1(c) and fig. 1 (d). It can be seen that the peak in the far field of the coherent light beam is based on an incoherent optical field when the semiconductor operating current is large. These incoherent light fields originate from parasitic oscillations inside the light-emitting unit, which cause a decrease in the coherence of the output laser light. The problem has been the biggest limitation affecting the development of the coherent beam combination technology of semiconductors. The parasitic oscillations are generated in fig. 1(b), 1(c) and 1(d) in part because the Talbot imaging principle they rely on is no longer true (the Talbot external cavity needs a structure that relies on infinite period broadening, but this condition is not true in semiconductor laser bars), the coupling between the cells that this type of external cavity can provide is limited, and the coupling effect is significantly reduced with laser power phase fluctuations, so the output beam quality shown in fig. 1(b), 1(c) and 1(d) is severely degraded when the operating current is raised. Until now, no method has been found to completely solve the problem of parasitic oscillation.
Disclosure of Invention
In view of the above defects or improvement requirements of the prior art, the present invention provides a coherent beam combining method and device for an external cavity semiconductor laser array, which aims to control a self-reproduction mode in a semiconductor external cavity to be a hermitian gaussian mode by using a diffractive optical element, etc., to realize phase locking in the semiconductor external cavity, thereby realizing phase-locked coherent mode output under a high power condition.
In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an external cavity semiconductor laser array coherent beam combination method, which specifically comprises: a high-order hermitian gaussian mode is generated within the semiconductor external cavity, which is used for coherent beam combining.
Further, if the number of light emitting units of the semiconductor bar is N, the order of the generated high-order Hermitian Gaussian beam is N-1, and a lobe of one Hermitian Gaussian mode works in one light emitting unit on the semiconductor bar.
Furthermore, the semiconductor outer cavity is of a ring cavity structure, and a high-order Hermitian Gaussian mode is transmitted in the semiconductor outer cavity in a one-way mode by utilizing the ring cavity structure.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an external cavity semiconductor laser array coherent beam combining apparatus comprising a semiconductor bar, a first transmissive diffractive optical element and an output mirror;
plating an anti-reflection film on one end face of the semiconductor bar for providing laser feedback; the other end face is plated with an antireflection film for limiting laser oscillation between the two end faces of the semiconductor bar;
the transmission type diffraction optical element is used for controlling an external cavity internal mode, so that a high-order Hermitian Gaussian beam matched with the semiconductor bar structure becomes a main mode of output laser, and coherent beam combination is realized;
the output mirror is used for providing laser coupling output.
Further, the apparatus further comprises a second transmission type diffractive optical element and an all-mirror;
a laser resonant cavity is formed between the second transmission type diffraction optical element and the other end face of the semiconductor bar, and the total reflection mirror is positioned at the outer end of the second transmission type diffraction optical element;
both end faces of the semiconductor bar are plated with antireflection films for reducing parasitic oscillation between the two end faces of the bar;
the full mirror is used to provide laser feedback.
Further, the apparatus further comprises a reflective diffractive optical element;
a laser resonant cavity is formed between the reflection-type diffraction optical element and the other end face of the semiconductor bar;
both end faces of the semiconductor bar are plated with antireflection films for reducing parasitic oscillation between the two end faces of the bar;
the reflection-type diffraction optical element is used for controlling an external cavity internal mode, so that a high-order Hermitian Gaussian beam matched with the semiconductor bar structure becomes a main mode of output laser, and coherent beam combination is realized; while providing laser feedback.
Further, the device also comprises a plurality of reflecting mirrors and an optical isolator;
both end faces of the semiconductor bar are plated with antireflection films for reducing parasitic oscillation between the two end faces of the bar;
the reflectors are used for forming a ring-shaped laser resonant cavity;
the optical isolator is used for enabling the interior of the laser resonant cavity to have traveling waves transmitted in one direction only.
Further, the device also comprises a grating;
the reflectors and the grating are used for forming an annular laser resonant cavity;
the grating is used to select a particular laser wavelength as the resonant wavelength within the resonant cavity.
Furthermore, an included angle between the end face direction of the semiconductor bar and the optical axis direction of the external cavity is a Brewster angle.
Generally, compared with the prior art, the technical scheme of the invention has the following technical characteristics and beneficial effects:
(1) the invention is to produce a mode that can be self-reproduced in a cavity, which is an eigenmode in the cavity; compared with a Talbot cavity, the establishment of the Talbot image needs a structure with a strict period of space infinite broadening, firstly, the length of a semiconductor bar cannot be spatially infinite broadened, and all the Talbot images can only be approximately established in a semiconductor external cavity; secondly, if the light-emitting unit has strong random phase fluctuation, the periodicity of the Talbot image may be lost by the light-emitting unit, so that the light beam coupling among the light-emitting units is greatly weakened, and the coherent beam combining capability is lost; the Hermite Gaussian mode is an eigensolution of the spherical mirror resonant cavity, and can become a main mode in the resonant cavity under the limitation of a diffraction optical element with a specific external cavity structure and the like, and even if random phase and intensity fluctuation occur in a light-emitting unit, a laser beam can be converged in the Hermite Gaussian mode after being resonated back and forth in the external cavity; this means that the coherent beam combination method based on Hermite Gaussian beam can provide better noise suppression capability;
(2) the method is based on the high-order Hermitian Gaussian mode to combine beams, and the uniformity between peaks of the mode is higher than that of a Talbot cavity; the peak of the Talbot cavity mode close to the bar edge can be very weak, so that the power of an output light beam can be influenced, and the anti-noise capability of the mode can be damaged; the invention utilizes the external cavity element to control the intracavity supermode to be a near-Hermite Gaussian mode, and the mode uniformity is higher than that of a Talbot cavity, so that the coherent laser output power can be improved;
(3) the invention does not generate extra loss in the resonant cavity because the peak of each Hermitian Gaussian beam is directly coupled into a single light-emitting unit;
(4) there are several ways to control the Hermite beams in the cavity, and most of them use diffraction optical elements, so it is convenient to process and low in cost.
Drawings
FIG. 1(a) is a basic principle schematic diagram of coherent beam combination of semiconductors based on Talbot cavity;
FIG. 1(b) is a graph of the self-oscillation within a light-emitting unit within a semiconductor external cavity as early reported by the Fraunhofer institute of Germany;
FIG. 1(c) is a graph of self-excited oscillation in a semiconductor light emitting unit in a Talbot cavity-based coherent beam in the United states oak ridge national laboratory;
FIG. 1(d) is a diagram of self-oscillation in a semiconductor light emitting unit in coherent beam-combining based on Talbot cavity of French national academy of sciences;
FIG. 2 is a normalized TEM09Hermite Gaussian mode diagram;
FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a simple transmissive diffractive optical element design;
FIG. 4 is a first embodiment of coherent beam combination for generating a high-order Hermitian Gaussian mode inside a semiconductor external cavity according to the present invention;
FIG. 5 is a second embodiment of coherent beam combination for generating a high-order Hermitian Gaussian mode inside a semiconductor external cavity according to the present invention;
FIG. 6 is a third embodiment of coherent beam combination for generating a high-order Hermitian Gaussian mode inside a semiconductor external cavity according to the present invention;
FIG. 7 is a fourth embodiment of coherent beam combination for generating a high-order Hermitian Gaussian mode inside a semiconductor external cavity according to the present invention;
FIG. 8 is a fifth embodiment of coherent beam combination for generating a high-order Hermitian Gaussian mode inside a semiconductor external cavity according to the present invention;
FIG. 9 shows a sixth embodiment of the present invention for generating a high-order Hermitian Gaussian mode inside a semiconductor external cavity to achieve coherent beam combination.
Detailed Description
In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the present invention is described in further detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and are not intended to limit the invention. In addition, the technical features involved in the embodiments of the present invention described below may be combined with each other as long as they do not conflict with each other.
The technical scheme adopted by the invention is as follows: controlling a self-reproduction mode in the semiconductor outer cavity to be a Hermite Gaussian mode by using a diffractive optical element and the like; for example, a TEM as shown in FIG. 209The hermitian gaussian mode normalizes the intensity distribution, which contains 10 peaks, each of which can be considered quasi-gaussian spatially distributed. A high-order Hermite Gaussian mode oscillation is generated by designing a specific diffractive optical element and the like as a cavity mirror of a semiconductor laser external cavity to control the inside of the semiconductor external cavity, each quasi-Gaussian peak on each Hermite Gaussian beam is coupled to a light-emitting unit on a semiconductor bar and amplified in the semiconductor light-emitting unit, and each quasi-Gaussian peak on the whole belongs to a high-order Hermite Gaussian laser mode with a determined phase relation. By this featureThe mode-fixed control method realizes that each light-emitting unit can be combined in a coherent mode.
Fig. 3 is a simple transmissive diffractive optical element design. The phase modulation of two adjacent small cells of a checkerboard area differs by pi/2, on which the diffracted beam will be further away from the optical axis, and therefore the area can be considered opaque to the laser light. The phase modulation is the same for the other regions. Thus, the opaque region enhances the loss of the partial mode, while the diffractive optical element does not introduce additional loss to the higher order Hermite mode if the checkerboard region is exactly aligned with the nodal line position of the mode, and thus the higher order Hermite mode can be induced to become the dominant mode of oscillation within the outer cavity.
Fig. 4 is a first embodiment of this aspect, which is the simplest embodiment. One end face of the semiconductor bar is plated with an anti-reflection film to provide laser feedback. And the other end face is coated with an antireflection film to limit laser oscillation between the two end faces of the semiconductor bar. An output mirror outside the Bar provides laser coupling-out, and part of the laser is also fed back into the cavity to be amplified again. The external cavity diffractive optical element provides sufficient mode discrimination such that the losses of other modes within the cavity are high or the mode volume is small, and only one hermitian mode matching the semiconductor bar structure can be present within the cavity (N light emitting elements on the semiconductor bar, then the hermitian mode of order N-1 is the matching mode). While other modes may fade due to mode competition or may not oscillate because the losses are too high. The high-order Hermitian Gaussian beam matched with the semiconductor bar structure becomes a main mode of output laser, so that coherent beam combination is realized.
Fig. 5 shows a second embodiment of the present invention, which differs from the first embodiment in that both end faces of the semiconductor bar are coated with an antireflection film. The higher the transmittance of the antireflection film is, the better the transmittance is, so that parasitic oscillation between two end faces of the bar strip is reduced. The total reflection mirror of the external cavity provides laser feedback, and the output mirror provides laser coupling output. The function of the diffraction optical element in the outer cavity is the same as that of the first scheme, high-order Hermite mode oscillation is realized, and the purpose of coherent beam combination is achieved. Only two diffractive optical elements are used simultaneously, so that the mode competition capability of a target Hermite Gaussian mode is improved, and the single-mode combined beam laser output with higher purity is obtained.
Fig. 6 is a third embodiment of this patent. The basic idea of this embodiment is the same as that of the second embodiment except that one reflective diffractive optical element is used instead of one of the transmissive diffractive optical elements. The function is the same as that of the transmission type diffractive optical element. The main advantage is that it can withstand higher power, facilitating cooling. The device may be replaced by a metal mirror or a dielectric mirror.
Fig. 7 is a fourth embodiment of this patent. The scheme is characterized in that the normal direction of the end face of the semiconductor laser light-emitting unit is inconsistent with the optical axis direction of the external cavity. The end face of the semiconductor laser light-emitting unit has a certain inclination angle. Since the two end faces of the semiconductor laser light emitting unit are not perpendicular to the optical axis, no effective oscillation can be formed inside the semiconductor light emitting unit, which can suppress the occurrence of parasitic oscillation and improve the beam combining efficiency. When the included angle between the normal directions of the two end faces of the semiconductor laser and the optical axis is the Brewster angle, the reflectivity of the p light on the end face of the semiconductor laser light-emitting unit is 0, so that the working efficiency of the laser is improved, the p light can be preferentially oscillated to generate linearly polarized light output, meanwhile, the parasitic oscillation inside the semiconductor light-emitting unit is effectively inhibited, and the efficiency of coherent beam combination is improved.
Fig. 8 is a fifth embodiment of the present patent. This solution is characterized in comparison with the fourth solution in that an optical isolator is used in this solution. The optical isolator functions to enable a traveling wave to be transmitted in only one direction inside the laser cavity, rather than a standing wave formed by oscillating back and forth as in the previous one-to-four schemes. The traveling wave transmitted in a single direction has the advantage that the traveling wave can avoid the spatial hole burning effect formed inside the semiconductor laser light-emitting unit, and further avoid a series of problems caused by the spatial hole burning effect, such as temperature gradient in the light-emitting unit, uneven carrier concentration and the like. Therefore, the ring cavity is very beneficial to eliminating unstable semiconductor laser output, reducing the number of longitudinal modes and enhancing the coherent beam combination efficiency of the semiconductor external cavity.
Fig. 9 is a sixth embodiment of this patent. This arrangement has the advantage over the fifth embodiment that a grating mirror is used instead of one of the mirrors. The grating is a dispersive element, and has the functions of selecting a specific laser wavelength as a resonance wavelength in the resonant cavity, compressing the line width of the semiconductor laser, stabilizing the wavelength of the working laser, and selecting a fixed longitudinal mode. When the semiconductor beam combining outer cavity is required to work under the condition of a single longitudinal mode, the scheme is feasible. The disadvantage is that its structure is somewhat complicated and the cost is higher than in the fourth solution. For embodiments one through four, transmissive or reflective gratings may also be used to compress the combined beam laser linewidth.
In the above examples, the oscillation modes in the semiconductor laser cavity are all high-order hermitian modes. The lobes (peaks) of the pattern form a deterministic phase relationship between them, and thus, coherent beam combining is achieved.
It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the foregoing is only a preferred embodiment of the invention, and is not intended to limit the invention, such that various modifications, equivalents and improvements may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.