Multi-Plane Light Conversion Combiner

1027 beams with 7 plates

Coherently combines over a thousand laser beams with only seven phase plates, achieving near-diffraction-limited quality and beam steering capability.

Hongbing, Zhou · Yan, Yuefang · Chenxu, Liu · Feng, Xi · Qin, Yu · Li, Min · Rumao, Tao · Lin, Honghuan · Zhitao, Peng · Wang, Jianjun · Yan, Lixin · Jing, Feng

High Power Laser Science and Engineering 2026

Specifications

Number of combined beams

{'zh': '1027', 'en': '1027'}

Beam quality M²

{'zh': '1.16', 'en': '1.16'}

Combining efficiency

{'zh': '100', 'en': '100'} %

Main-lobe power ratio

{'zh': '87.1', 'en': '87.1'} %

Advantages

Drastically fewer phase plates

Compared with conventional cascaded combining, MPLC achieves phase control for 1027 beams using only seven phase plates, greatly reducing system complexity.

Near-diffraction-limited quality

The combined beam has M² of 1.16, close to the diffraction limit, enabling long-distance propagation with high brightness.

Combining efficiency near 100%

Numerical simulations show combining efficiency close to 100%, with negligible power loss, critical for high-power applications.

Integrated beam steering

The same MPLC can steer the combined beam while combining, achieving main-lobe power ratio of 87.1% in 10-mode operation without extra steering components.

Applications

• High-power laser systems：Replaces conventional split-and-combine schemes in high-power laser systems
• Laser beam control：Achieves beam steering simultaneously with combining, without extra components
• Photonic integrated chips：Phase plates can be fabricated via micro/nano processes, enabling on-chip integration
• Optical phased arrays：Provides multi-mode phase control for beamforming in optical phased arrays
• Directed energy weapons：Combines over a thousand beams at near 100% efficiency for directed energy weapons