Synchronization in Coupled Laser Arrays with Correlated and Uncorrelated Disorder.

The effect of quenched disorder in a many-body system is experimentally investigated in a controlled fashion. It is done by measuring the phase synchronization (i.e.

Improved phase-locking of laser arrays by pump shaping.

We introduce a method to enhance the phase-locking quality and duration of an end-pumped laser array by precisely shaping its pump beam to overlap with the array. Shaping the pump beam results in a significant improvement in lasing efficiency and reduces the pump power required to reach the lasing threshold compared to a typical uniform pumping configuration. Our approach involves shaping a highly incoherent laser beam by addressing smaller segments of the beam with higher local spatial coherence.

Improved laser phase locking with intra-cavity adaptive optics.

Phase locking of coupled lasers is severely hindered by the spread in their natural lasing frequencies. We present an intra-cavity adaptive optics method that reduces the frequency spread and thereby improves phase locking. Using an intra-cavity spatial light modulator and an iterative optimization algorithm, we demonstrate a fourfold enhancement of phase locking 450 coupled lasers, as quantified by the peak intensity and the inverse participation ratio of the far-field output distributions.