High Power Pulse Laser Reflection Sequence Combination with a Fast Steering Mirror*

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate a new approach for a high power pulse laser reflection sequence combination with a fast steering mirror (FSM). This approach possesses significant advantages for lasers combining with a variety of output power, wavelength, pulse duration, repetition rates and polarization. The maximum number of laser routes participating in combination principally depends on the FSM’s adjustment time of the step response, lasers’ repetition rates and pulse duration. A proof-of-principle experiment is performed with two 2-kW level pulsed beams. The results indicate that the combined beam has an excellent pointing stability with rms pointing jitter ∼8.5 μrad. Meanwhile, a high combining efficiency of 98.6% is achieved with maintaining good beam quality.