On July 16, the research team helmed by Shao Jianda and Jin Yunxia from the High Power Laser Components Technology and Engineering Department at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM), Chinese Academy of Sciences, achieved significant advancements in mid-infrared high-power continuous-wave laser spectral beam combining. The team introduced a tiled-grating spectral beam combining architecture. This innovative design enables efficient multi-channel mid-infrared laser beam combining by strategically distributing and tiling multiple small-aperture sub-gratings within the space that would typically accommodate an equivalent large-aperture grating. This method diminishes the dependence on ultra-large-aperture monolithic gratings, substantially reducing the manufacturing challenges associated with gratings. Furthermore, it enhances the scalability of multi-channel beam combining systems. The pertinent findings were published in Optics Letters, paving a new technical route for scaling mid-infrared multi-channel spectral beam combining systems from tens of watts to the hundred-watt level. Additionally, these results offer valuable references for constructing multi-band high-power laser platforms that span from visible light to terahertz frequencies^[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][14]^.
