Date of Award

12-1995

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Engineering Physics

First Advisor

Jeffrey Grantham, PhD

Abstract

A ten element micromirror array has been designed, fabricated, and employed to control the far field irradiance pattern of a phase locked laser diode array. The laser array used in this experiment was a ten element, gain guided array lasing at a nominal wavelength of 828 nm and operating in the it out of phase supermode. The laser's near field irradiance was imaged onto a micromirror array, where the it phase differences between adjacent laser elements were corrected. This was accomplished by moving the micromirrors with individually applied voltages. The result was the desirable single lobed far field pattern, placing the maximum amount of laser power on a single spot. The micromirror array was also used to phase steer the reflected laser beam. In analogy to phased array radar steering, a small phase difference was introduced between adjacent elements of the array. The phase front introduced across the array steered the single lobe, resulting in beam deflections from -O.480 to +0.327 deg from the normal to the array.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GAP-ENP-95D-2

DTIC Accession Number

ADA303223

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