Advances in fiber laser spectral beam combining for power scaling

Spectral Beam Combining (SBC) of fiber lasers provides a simple, robust architecture for high brightness power scaling beyond the limit of a single fiber. We review recent progress in power scaling and describe what we believe is the highest power SBC fiber demonstration and largest number of fiber lasers combined to date. Here we report results on a fiber SBC system where we achieved > 30 kW by combining 96 individual fiber lasers into a single high brightness beam with a beam quality of M2 = 1.6 x 1.8. The potential for further power scaling at the system level is highlighted with examples of beam combinable fiber laser power scaling.