Comparison of spectral beam combining based on an external cavity with and without microlens array

•An experimental system of SBC with microlens array was built for fiber laser array.•Microlens sizes of focal length and thickness was calculated for a microlens array.•The tunable ranges of single fiber laser with and without a microlens were compared.•The experimental results of SBC with and without a microlens array were compared.

An experimental system of spectral beam combining based on external cavity with a microlens array has been designed and built. According to the theoretical models established, the influence of the transverse offsets on coupling efficiency and beam quality with and without a microlens array were compared. The simulation results show that the incorporation of microlens can significantly improve the coupling efficiency and beam quality. In the experiment of individual fiber laser, the fiber laser can be tunable in a range of 40.23 nm with a microlens, wider than the one without the microlens (36.25 nm). In the spectral beam combining experiment of two fiber lasers with a microlens array, the combined efficiency is 77% with the output power of 695 mW and the beam quality factor (Mx2 ) of 1.27, and for the system without the microlens array, the combining efficiency is 75% with the output power of 660 mW and the beam quality factor (Mx2) of 1.31. The experiment results show that the SBC system with a microlens array has slightly better performance than that without the microlens array, which is almost consistent with the theoretical analysis results for the fiber array width of 0–2.5 mm.