Coherent beam combination of two slab laser amplifiers based on stochastic parallel gradient descent algorithm

Coherent beam combination (CBC) of laser arrays is an efficient way to scale brightness. We demonstrate CBC of two slab laser amplifiers based on active phase locking. Instead of the complex phase detection system, intensity detection is used and the feedback control signal is calculated based on the stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm. The experimental investigation on a 101.5-W CBC of two slab amplifiers shows that the entire system in a closed loop performs well for long-time observation. A combination efficiency of nearly 81% is realized. The slab amplifier laser arrays are the coherent beams efficiently combined by active phase locking based on the SPGD.