RP Photonics

Encyclopedia

Consulting Software Encyclopedia Buyer's Guide

Short address: rpp-con.com

Dr. Paschotta, the founder of RP Photonics, supports your R & D with his deep expertise. Save time and money with efficient support!

Short address: rpp-soft.com

Powerful simulation software for fiber lasers and amplifiers, resonator design, pulse propagation and multilayer coating design.

Short address: rpp-enc.com

The famous Encyclopedia of Laser Physics and Technology provides a wealth of high-quality scientific and technical information.

Short address: rpp-bg.com

In the RP Photonics Buyer's Guide, you easily find suppliers for photo­nics products. As a supp­lier, you can profit from enhanced entries!

Learn on lasers and photonics every day!

part of the Virtual Library

The simpler variant is incoherent combining. For example, the output beams of two broad area laser diodes, one being vertically polarized and the other one horizontally polarized, can be sent onto a thin-film polarizer such that one of the beams is reflected, the other one transmitted, and both beams then propagate in the same direction. As a result, one obtains an unpolarized beam having the combined optical power of the input beams (neglecting some parasitic losses) and the same beam quality. Accordingly, the brightness is nearly doubled.

This technique is often used e.g. for end pumping of a solid-state laser with an increased power. It works only if the laser crystal can similarly well absorb pump radiation with both polarization directions. This is the case e.g. for Nd:YAG, but not for Nd:YVO₄.

Incoherent polarization beam combining can not be considered as a method for power scaling, as it is not repeatable: it requires polarized input beams and leads to an unpolarized output beam.

If two mutually coherent beams are polarization combined, it is possible to obtain a linear polarization state for the output. Assuming equal input powers for the two ports, the output polarization will be rotated by 45° with respect to the polarization direction of any of the input beams. The method is one variant of coherent beam combining.

Due to the linear output polarization, coherent polarization combining can be repeated many times. It is thus a technique suitable for power scaling.

How do you rate this article?

Your general impression:	don't know poor satisfactory good excellent
Technical quality:	don't know poor satisfactory good excellent
Usefulness:	don't know poor satisfactory good excellent
Readability:	don't know poor satisfactory good excellent
Comments:
Spam protection:	(enter the value of 5 + 8 in this field!)

If you want a response, you may leave your e-mail address in the comments field, or directly send an e-mail.

Profit from our spring offer! For example, get enhanced entries for free during two months.

Have you seen the
RP Photonics Buyer's Guide?

It lists many hundreds of suppliers for photonics products, and is just one mouse click away from the extremely popular Encyclopedia of Laser Physics and Technology:

• In any product-related encyclopedia article, you find a box for the Buyer's Guide.
• Alternatively, click on the heading which your mouse pointer has just touched.

Our Buyer's Guide is what you need:

• easy handling, clear layout
• high-quality information
• additional technical information in the encyclopedia

And surely you will remember where to find this useful resource again!

Suppliers: get your free entries, and enhanced visibility with paid entries.