Novel, High-Power, Pump-Signal Fiber Combiner

Recent advances in fiber lasers have shown their potential for power scaling to directed ener-gy levels. One of the most promising approaches is the coherent combination of multiple Yb:fiber lasers. Many of the high-power, cladding-pumped, large-mode-area (LMA) fiber sys-tems demonstrated in the laboratory have employed free-space optics to couple the diode laser pump power into the pump cladding of the fiber. While this approach is useful for power scaling demonstrations, it is not practical for operational lasers in terms of both reliability and rugged-ness. A"weak link"in the development of high power fiber lasers is the pump combiner. In this program, Q-Peak proposes to fabricate and test a novel pump combiner approach.