Analysis of coherent combination characteristics of beam array via tight focusing

Abstract

In order to obtain focal spot with high power and spot size comparable to wavelength scale, a novel approach to achieving the coherent combination of beam array by tightly focusing is proposed. The physical model of coherent beam combination of beam array via tightly focusing is built up by the use of the vector diffraction integral. Therefore the influences of beam configuration, polarization state, beam width, beam interval and numerical aperture of the tight focusing system on the characteristics of the combined beam are discussed in detail. The results indicate that the coherent combination effect of beam array with linear and circular polarization via tight focusing is the first best, and that with the radial polarization is the second best but that with the azimuthal polarization is the worst. The beam array of linear and circular polarization with rectangle configuration can be tightly focused onto center point, and the beam array with hexagon is also focused onto center point but with lower efficiency. In addition, by enlarging the beam width and the beam interval to a certain extent, the combination efficiency can be increased. By optimizing the beam configuration, beam width and interval, and selecting rational numerical aperture of the tightly focusing geometry, the focal spot with high energy concentration can be obtained with high beam quality and combination efficiency.