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Phase locking of GaAs semiconductor diode lasers

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Abstract

Beam combination via nondegenerate two-wave mixing (NDTWM) is a nonlinear optical scheme that enables one to transfer energy from a high frequency pump beam to a low frequency probe wave. An important characteristic of this process is that it is not necessary for the pump wave to be phase coherent as the pump photons acquire the frequency, wave vector, and phase of the probe beam. Thus an incoherent pump beam can be used to amplify a coherent probe wave without degrading its optical characteristics and phase-lock the amplified output laser beams. We examine phase locking of semiconductor diode laser arrays via NDTWM in a variety of nonlinear media in either waveguides or optical fibers. The waveguide structures are essential for efficient phase-locking, since they provide large effective nonlinear wave-mixing coefficient. For semiconductor diode lasers whose power levels exceed 100 mW, the emission is usually phase incoherent and this presents a problem for phase-locking by a coherent probe beam. However, if the active medium has a response time that is fast on a time scale set by any changes in the interference pattern of the laser beams, the phase incoherent pump wave may still be phase locked.

© 1991 Optical Society of America

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