Vv. Apollonov et al., SPATIAL PHASE-LOCKING OF LINEAR ARRAYS OF 4 AND 12 WIDE-APERTURE SEMICONDUCTOR-LASER DIODES IN AN EXTERNAL-CAVITY, Quantum electronics, 28(3), 1998, pp. 257-263
Spatial phase locking was achieved experimentally for radiation from l
inear arrays of 4 and 12 wide-aperture multimode semiconductor lasers,
This phase locking was attained in an external cavity of 1 < L < 3 cm
length with a plane mirror (R = 90%) by diffractive exchange of radia
tion between neighbouring lasers, An analysis of all possible cavity o
scillation eigenmodes (supermodes) was made for a phase-locked array o
f 4 coupled lasers. The output radiation of this array was characteris
ed by a high degree of coherence (with the contrast of V = 0.9). The a
ngular width (at half-maximum) delta Psi was 1.2 mrad for the fundamen
tal (nu = 1) and highest (nu = 4) supermodes, and 0.8 mrad for the mod
es with nu = 2 or 3, which corresponded to the diffraction limit. Full
supermode selection was achieved in the 4-laser array as a result of
the Talbot effect when the cavity length was L = Z(T)/4. The far-field
distribution of the radiation was then characterised by the parameter
s V = 0.98 and delta Psi = 1.2 mrad, The corresponding parameters of a
phase-locked 12-laser array were V = 0.93 for the axial propagation z
one and delta Psi = 0.46 mrad.