Effect of feedback elements on the phase locking properties of
fiber lasers via mutual injection coupling
Bing LEI*, Wei LIU, Jianhua SHI, Tianfu YAO and Ying FENG
College of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology,
Changsha, Hunan 410073, China
ABSTRACT
Coherent combining of several multi-wavelength fiber lasers is a promising approach to suppress the nonlinear effects
and improve the output power. Passive phase locking of two multi-wavelength fiber lasers has been demonstrated by
using mutual injection coupling and spatial filtering technique, and the effect of feedback elements on the phase locking
properties has been investigated in detail. Three different kinds of feedback elements, fiber Bragg grating (FBG), fiber
loop mirror (FLM) and fiber reflection mirror (FRM) are employed as the component laser’s high reflection mirror to
construct the phase locking array respectively. Compared with the traditional feedback element FBG, the FLM is made
of a 3dB fiber coupler and provide high reflection feedback in a wide spectral range for fiber laser, and the FRM is also a
wide-band reflector with the fiber end coated by multilayer dielectric film. When the FLM and FRM are employed as the
component laser’s feedback elements, a large number of longitudinal modes operate simultaneously and the spectra vary
continuously. Fortunately, stable phase locking has been obtained as long as the single-mode filtering fiber is introduced
into the feedback loop, and obvious interference patterns with high fringe visibility have been observed in far field. The
phased array’s output power can also keep stable at the same time, and its amount is higher than the case of using FBG.
In conclusion, the research results indicate that efficient phase locking of several multi-wavelength fiber lasers can also
be achieved by passive self-adjusting method and higher output power can be obtained compared with the usual coherent
combining of narrow-band laser beams, as long as necessary optical coupling is introduced among component lasers and
proper spatial filtering measures are adopted
.
Keywords: fiber lasers, passive phase locking, mutual injection coupling, spatial filtering, feedback elements
1. INTRODUCTION
The laser source with high brightness and high average power has wide-ranging applications in many fields, and
coherent beam combining (CBC) of multiple fiber lasers in a phased array has been expected to be an effective way to
obtain a laser source of this kind
[1-3]
. Compared with active phase controlling techniques, the passive self-adjusting
methods are relatively simple and easy to implement, as long as tight optical coupling is introduced among component
lasers
[4-10]
. As we all known, the conventional CBC is mainly achieved among component lasers operating in single-
frequency or narrow line-width states, and increasing the combined output power further is restricted by nonlinear effects
and component lasers’ output performance. To suppress the nonlinear effects and improve the output power of a phased
fiber laser system, CBC of several multi-wavelength laser beams has been considered as a promising approach, and
effective CBC of several multi-wavelength laser beams by active phase controlling methods have been researched both
in experiment and theory
[11-14]
. However, phase locking of some multi-wavelength fiber lasers utilizing passive self-
adjusting method has rarely been studied.
In this paper, passive phase locking of two multi-wavelength Erbium-doped fiber lasers has been demonstrated by using
mutual injection coupling and spatial filtering technique, and the effects of feedback elements have been investigated in
contrastive experiments when three different kinds of feedback elements (FBG, FLM and FRM) are employed. The
phased array’s output properties are studied by analyzing the far-field interference pattern, output spectra and power, and
the experimental results indicate that phase locking of some multi-wavelength fiber lasers utilizing passive self-adjusting
method is also feasible and higher output power can be obtained compared with the usual coherent combining of narrow-
band laser beams, as long as necessary optical coupling is introduced among component fiber lasers and proper spatial
filtering measures are adopted
.
*leibing_2000@nudt.edu.cn; phone 086 0731-84574749
Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9671 96711L-1