Coherent characteristics of solid-state lasers with corner cubes

A corner cube (CC) as a peculiar coherent combination element is first, to the best of our knowledge, theoretically and experimentally proved by the authors. When a CC is used as a total-reflecting mirror in the solid-state laser resonator it can improve the laser far-field energy focalization. Furthermore, the differences between the coherent characteristics of the lasers with a corner cube resonator (CCR) and those with a Fabry-Perot resonator have been investigated, respectively. Theoretical calculation and numerical simulation have proved that the symmetric output beams of the CCR laser are coherent and the adjacent output beams are partially coherent. Based on these special coherent characteristics, a new laser coherent combining configuration, in which a CC was utilized as a total-reflecting mirror, was proposed and experimentally investigated. In our experiments, the measured far-field intensity profiles of coherent combing laser arrays are in good agreement with the numerical simulation. These novel coherent characteristics of a CC may be important for applications in solid-state lasers and laser coherent combining systems, and coherent combination may be one of the development trends and future research directions for CCR lasers. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America