Experimental Investigation of Generating Laser Beams of on-Demand Lateral Field Distribution from Digital Lasers

A new type of laser system, known as a digital laser, was proposed in 2013. Many well-known laser beams with known analytical forms have been successfully generated in digital lasers. However, for a light field that does not have an analytical form, such as a multi-point light field or a light field with an arbitrary lateral distribution, how to generate such a light field from a digital laser has not been explored. The goal of this study was to experimentally explore how to generate an on-demand lateral laser field in a digital laser. In this study, a multi-point Gaussian laser beam was successfully generated in a digital laser by both controlling the range of the laser gain and the modulation of the phase boundary of the end of the cavity. This study then generated laser beams with an on-demand lateral field distribution by generating a superimposed multi-point laser field in a digital laser. Examples of triangles, rectangles, and letter T-shaped light fields produced by digital lasers were experimentally demonstrated. In summary, this study experimentally showed that a laser beam with an on-demand lateral field distribution could be generated in a digital laser by generating a superimposed multi-point laser field in a digital laser, in which a laser gain region covering the entire intra-cavity multi-point light field and the projected SLM (spatial light modulator) modulation function adopting a mimic amplitude mask are both used.