title: 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 Nd:YVO4 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 W with a nearly perfect TEM00 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.
authors: Optics Physics Laboratory, CL06, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China. pengqinjun@263.net
authors: Qinjun
authors: Q
authors: Peng
authors: Zhipei
authors: Z
authors: Sun
authors: Yahui
authors: Y
authors: Chen
authors: Lin
authors: L
authors: Guo
authors: Yong
authors: Y
authors: Bo
authors: Xiaodong
authors: X
authors: Yang
authors: Zuyan
authors: Z
authors: Xu