522 W average power, spectrally beam-combined fiber laser with near-diffraction-limited beam quality.

We report a three-channel, spectrally beam-combined (SBC), 1 mum fiber laser that produces 522 W of average power with near-diffraction-limited (M2 ~ 1.2) beam quality. The laser features a SBC power combining efficiency of 93%, versatile master-oscillator, power-amplifier fiber channels with up to 260 W of narrow-band, polarized, and near-diffraction-limited output that is tunable over nearly the entire 1 micro m Yb(3+) gain bandwidth, and excellent prospects for significant power scaling. To our knowledge, these results represent the highest beam quality and average power achieved to date for a beam-combined fiber laser system.