Eyal Shekel: Coherent Bam Combining (CBC) and Optical Phased Array (OPA) – Technology and Applications

Abstract:
Coherent Beam combining (CBC) is key in overcoming limitations in the scalability of single mode (SM) lasers. Currently, SM fiber lasers are limited to several kW. Diode SM lasers are limited to approximately 1 watt. Civan Advanced Technologies’ scalable method for CBC in the near field allows combining of hundreds of amplifiers to a SM output. Shekel will present CBC of diode amplifiers up to several tens of watts with SM output and CBC of fiber amplifiers with SM, narrow bandwidth, polarized output of more than 1 kW. The presentation will discuss the scalability of this method.

Another method of CBC is combining in the far field. This is often referred to as Optical Phase array (OPA). The advantage of OPA is the control on beam shape and position. Results in 2D OPA with beam steering will be presented.

Biography:
Dr. Shekel is the founder and CEO of Civan Advanced Technologies Ltd (www.civan.co.il), a Jerusalem based Hi – Tech company in the field of electro optics. Since its establishment in 2008, Civan’s focus has been the development of high power lasers. Civan’s product line includes Single Mode (SM) diode and fiber lasers with Continuous Wave (CW) power ranging from 10 Watt to KWatt. The advantages of Civan’s lasers include high reliability, high wall-plug efficiency, energy saving, low cost and low maintenance.

Prior to Civan, Dr. Shekel founded Al Cielo Ltd., a leading company in the manufacture of Fiber Optical Gyros and navigation systems (www.alcielo.com). Shekel served as CEO of Al Cielo from it’s inception in 2005 until the company was sold in December 2007. In 1997, Shekel founded and served as GM of Chiaro Networks Ltd until 2005. Chiaro developed the largest optical switch in the world as well as state of the art technologies in the field of optical communications. Shekel also was the co-founder and board member of Nano-Or which developed and manufactured 3D measurement systems with nanometer resolution for the semiconductor industry. Shekel is a member of the board of trusties of the Jerusalem Collage of Technology (www.jct.ac.il) and of the Bney Brak Haredi Collage (mivchar.org.il).

Shekel earned his Ph.D. in physics at New York University in 1994 and his BsC from the Jerusalem Collage Of Technology. Shekel is the inventor of 43 patents. He served in the IDF and reached the rank of Major.