Hong Jin KONG,¹ Jae Yong LEE,¹ Yun Sup SHIN,¹ Jae Oh BYUN,¹ Hee Su PARK¹ and Hyogun KIM²

¹ Department of Physics, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 373-1, Kusong-dong Yusong-gu Taejon 305-701, Korea, ² Kumho Information & Telecommunication Lab., 572 Sangam-dong, Kwangsan-gu Kwangju 506-303, Korea

(Received September 13, 1996; Accepted November 14, 1996)

Beam recombination characteristics were numerically investigated in array laser amplification using stimulated Brillouin scattering phase conjugation. To clarify the effect of piston errors due to imperfect phase locking, spatial intensity profiles of the beam recombination output were calculated in both the near and the far field on the basis of Rayleigh-Sommerfeld diffraction theory. The analyses indicate that piston errors are seriously detrimental to the quality of a beam recombination output and should be eliminated by a proper phase locking. It is also found that the gap between the beam splitting-combining wedges has a negligible effect.

Key words : array laser amplification, beam recombination, phase-conjugate mirror, stimulated Brillouin scattering, piston error, phase locking

*Presented at 1996 International Workshop on Interferometory (IWI '96), August 27-29, Wako, Saitama, Japan.