The new method can maintain beam quality while significantly improving the power of fiber lasers

The new discovery by optical scientists has brought new vitality to fiber lasers. This innovative method significantly improves the power of lasers without reducing beam quality, and will become an important defense technology for future low-cost drones and remote sensing.

The research teams from the University of South Australia, the University of Adelaide, and Yale University have demonstrated new applications of multimode fibers, successfully increasing the power of fiber lasers by 3 to 9 times while maintaining beam quality, enabling them to focus on targets from a long distance.

This important research achievement was published in the journal Nature Communications, and the breakthrough stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) suppression and output focusing schematic diagram showcases its technical principles.

This innovative technology excites multiple modes in multimode fibers, significantly increasing the SBS threshold power. The core lies in generating diffraction limited light spots near the fiber output by modulating the relative phase of the fiber mode, and producing a focusing effect through lens collimation.

Researchers say that this new method will bring extremely high power output to fiber lasers, which will be widely used in fields such as defense industry, remote sensing applications, and gravitational wave detection, bringing unprecedented benefits for future development.

In response to the popularity of low-cost drones in modern battlefields, high-power fiber lasers are particularly important. It has the advantages of extremely low single launch cost and light speed operation, which can resist large-scale drone attacks, maintain the launch capability of military assets and vehicles, and ensure the execution of critical combat tasks.

This advanced technology not only has potential deterrent effects in the field of defense, but also aligns with the goals of defense strategic assessment and AUKUS Pillar 2.

Dr. Ori Henderson Sapir, a researcher at the Institute of Photonics and Advanced Sensing at the National University of Australia, stated that Australia has a long history of innovative fiber optic technology, which will put it in a world leading position in developing the next generation of high-power fiber lasers, not only limited to the defense field, but also contributing to new scientific discoveries.

Source: Laser Net