Efficient improvement of laser beam quality by coherent combining in an improved Michelson cavity

Abstract

The efficient improvement of laser beam quality is demonstrated by coherent combining of two $\mathrm{Nd}:\mathrm{Y}\mathrm{V}{\mathrm{O}}_4$ lasers in an improved Michelson cavity. When the two lasers are separately operated with beam qualities of $M_x{}^2=1.74$ and $M_y{}^2=1.34$ for laser 1 and $M_x{}^2=1.53$ and $M_y{}^2=1.39$ for laser 2, by coherent combining of the two lasers, a single beam output exceeding $2\mathrm{W}$ with a nearly perfect ${\mathrm{TEM}}_{00}$ mode $(M_x{}^2=1.08,M_y{}^2=1.04)$ is obtained. Moreover, it can withstand environmental perturbations with no change in beam quality or output power and has the potential for scaling to much higher output power with high beam quality by coherent addition of multiple lasers in this configuration.

© 2005 Optical Society of America

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