{"id":233026,"date":"2026-03-11T03:30:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T08:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/3d-printed-photonic-lanterns-combine-up-to-37-multimode-lasers-into-one-fiber"},"modified":"2026-03-11T03:30:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T08:30:34","slug":"3d-printed-photonic-lanterns-combine-up-to-37-multimode-lasers-into-one-fiber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/3d-printed-photonic-lanterns-combine-up-to-37-multimode-lasers-into-one-fiber","title":{"rendered":"3D-printed photonic lanterns combine up to 37 multimode lasers into one fiber"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/3d-printed-photonic-lanterns-combine-up-to-37-multimode-lasers-into-one-fiber.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers have developed a microscopic 3D-printed optical device that can efficiently combine light from dozens of small semiconductor lasers into a single multimode optical fiber with very low loss. The team demonstrated photonic lanterns that multiplex 7, 19, and 37 multimode VCSEL lasers directly into a fiber while preserving brightness and easing alignment constraints. By enabling scalable incoherent beam combining of many multimode lasers, the technology could simplify and improve high-power laser systems, optical communications, and other photonic applications where efficiently delivering large optical power through fibers is critical.<\/p>\n<p>A new study <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-026-70458-4\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Nature Communications<\/i> by Ph.D. student Yoav Dana, under the guidance of Professor Dan M. Marom and his team at the Institute of Applied Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, demonstrate a significant breakthrough in system scale and miniaturization for an optical beam combining apparatus, as those required in high-power laser systems.<\/p>\n<p>The research, conducted in collaboration with Civan Lasers, introduces a novel 3D-printed microscale Photonic Lantern (PL) designed for the efficient incoherent combining of multimode sources. This innovation addresses the long-standing challenge of coupling light from large Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) arrays, each of said VCSEL sources being multimoded, into multimode fibers (MMFs) while preserving the brightness and modal capacity of the system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have developed a microscopic 3D-printed optical device that can efficiently combine light from dozens of small semiconductor lasers into a single multimode optical fiber with very low loss. The team demonstrated photonic lanterns that multiplex 7, 19, and 37 multimode VCSEL lasers directly into a fiber while preserving brightness and easing alignment constraints. By [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1489,1497],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3d-printing","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}