Comparative study on the power scaling performance of three different coherent polarization beam combination system structures

Coherent polarization beam combination (CPBC) is a new kind of coherent beam combination configuration with high combining efficiency and excellent beam quality. In order to extend the CPBC system to a large scale, we provide a comparative study on the power scaling performance of three different coherent polarization beam combination system structures. It is found that the pairwise structure has high tolerance to aberrations and has a potential to extend to a large scale with high combining efficiency. In consideration of all the aberrations, the combining efficiency of the pairwise structure can be reached as high as 90% when the combined beams are more than 200. Some instructive suggestions are given to extend the CPBC system to a large scale.