A simplification strategy for segmented mirror splitters (SMS) used as beam combiners is presented. These devices are useful for compact beam division and the combination of linear and 2-D arrays. However, the standard design requires unique thin-film coating sections for each input beam; thus, potential for scaling to high beam-counts is limited due to manufacturing complexity. Taking advantage of the relative insensitivity of the beam combination process to amplitude variations, numerical techniques are used to optimize highly simplified designs with only one, two or three unique coatings. It is demonstrated that with correctly chosen coating reflectivities, the simplified optics are capable of high combination efficiency for several tens of beams. The performance of these optics as beam splitters in multicore fiber amplifier systems is analyzed, and inhomogeneous power distribution of the simplified designs is noted as a potential source of combining loss in such systems. These simplified designs may facilitate further scaling of filled-aperture coherently combined systems in linear array or 2-D array formats.

中文翻译：

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填充孔径相干光束组合的光学元件的简化设计。

提出了一种简化的策略，适用于用作光束组合器的分段镜分离器（SMS）。这些设备可用于紧凑的光束分割以及线性和二维阵列的组合。但是，标准设计要求每个输入光束都有独特的薄膜涂层部分。因此，由于制造复杂性，缩放到高束数的潜力受到限制。利用光束组合过程对幅度变化相对不敏感的优势，数值技术被用于优化仅具有一个，两个或三个独特涂层的高度简化的设计。结果表明，通过正确选择镀膜反射率，简化的光学器件能够对数十个光束实现高组合效率。分析了这些光学器件在多芯光纤放大器系统中作为分束器的性能，简化设计的不均匀功率分配被认为是此类系统中组合损耗的潜在来源。这些简化的设计可以促进线性阵列或二维阵列格式的填充孔径相干组合系统的进一步缩放。