First experimental demonstration of coherent beam combining of more than 100 beams

Coherent beam combining of 107 beams has been demonstrated for the first time to the best of our knowledge. When the system was in closed loop, the pattern in far-field was stable and the fringe contrast was >96%. The impact of the dynamic tilt error, the piston error, and power inconsistency was theoretically analyzed. Meanwhile, the distribution law of dynamic tilt error was estimated and the correlation of the tilt dithering of different axis was analyzed statistically. The ratio of power in the central lobe was similar to 22.5%. The phase residue error in the closed loop was similar to lambda/22, which was evaluated by the root-mean-square error of the signal generated from the photoelectric detector. (C) 2020 Chinese Laser Press