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Re: combining laser beams



On Wed, 11 Dec 2002 18:24:24 -0500 Ludwik Kowalski
<kowalskil@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU> writes:
I remember reading about laser beam amplifiers. For the
low power used in communication optical fibers doped
with rare earth atoms do this very well. Power-out is much
higher than power-in and no loss of the encoded
information. The "amplifier" is designed for one specific
wavelength, such as 1.3 or 1.5 microns. I guess you can
call it a "second laser."
Ludwik Kowalski

*** You can call it a second laszer ..... or you can call the beam from
one laser anything else that you want ...........It could be compared
with
a person and her shadow. No matter what you call it... it's not the
same as having two different persons interacting with each other.

Herb Gottlieb from New York City

On Wednesday, Dec 11, 2002, at 17:37 US/Eastern, Carl E. Mungan
wrote:

Thanks for the replies so far. I can see I need to say more. A
half-silvered mirror won't do because I want to combine the power
of
the beams, not throw half of it away.

One reason to try to do this coherently is that you end up with 4
times the power of the original beams (say both have the same
power
for simplicity) rather than just 2 times. Also, you would
probably
have better beam quality.

Specifically, I was thinking of combining the outputs of the
laser
stripes off a semiconductor bar. This would then be used as an
optical pump source for stimulated emission experiments, hence
another need for high beam quality not just raw power.
--
Carl E. Mungan, Asst. Prof. of Physics 410-293-6680 (O) -3729
(F)
U.S. Naval Academy, Stop 9C, Annapolis, MD 21402-5026
mungan@usna.edu
http://physics.usna.edu/physics/faculty/mungan/