Laser system with staircased slow-axis collimators
AssigneePanasonic Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd.
InventorsWang-Long ZHOU, Bryan LOCHMAN, Bien CHANN, Matthew SAUTER
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In various embodiments, pointing errors in a non-wavelength-beam-combining dimension of a laser system are at least partially alleviated via staircased collimation lenses.
Claims23
-20. (canceled)
A laser system comprising:
- a plurality of beam emitters each emitting one or more beams;
- a dispersive element for receiving the beams and combining the beams, in a wavelength-beam-combining (WBC) dimension, into a multi-wavelength beam;
- a plurality of collimators disposed optically downstream of the beam emitters and optically upstream of the dispersive element, wherein each collimator receives the one or more beams from a beam emitter and collimates the one or more beams in a non-WBC dimension;
- and
- a partially reflective output coupler for receiving the multi-wavelength beam from the dispersive element, transmitting a first portion of the multi-wavelength beam as an output beam, and reflecting a second portion of the multi-wavelength beam back toward the dispersive element,
- wherein:
- the dispersive element is tilted, in the non-WBC dimension, at a non-zero angle such that first-order reflections of the beams from the dispersive element are directed away from the beam emitters, whereby pointing error is introduced into the multi-wavelength beam, and
- optical axes of two or more of the collimators are displaced from each other in the non-WBC dimension, whereby the pointing error arising from the tilted dispersive element is reduced.
-42. (canceled)
A method of aligning a laser system comprising (i) a plurality of beam emitters each configured to emit one or more beams, (ii) a dispersive element for receiving the beams and combining the beams, in a wavelength-beam-combining (WBC) dimension, into a multi-wavelength beam, and (iii) a partially reflective output coupler for receiving the multi-wavelength beam from the dispersive element, transmitting a first portion of the multi-wavelength beam as an output beam, and reflecting a second portion of the multi-wavelength beam back toward the dispersive element, the method comprising:
- combining beams emitted by the plurality of beam emitters into the multi-wavelength beam at the dispersive element;
- preventing first-order reflections from the dispersive element from propagating back to the plurality of beam emitters;
- and
- reducing pointing error of the multi-wavelength beam.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.