MULTI-STAGE METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR COHERENT DIFFRACTIVE BEAM COMBINING

摘要

A system or method for combining a large number of light beams at a single wavelength into a high-power beam uses a master oscillator transmitting a light beam to a first phase modulation stage, which splits the beam into N beams and locks the beam phases. A second phase modulation stage splits each N beam into M beams and locks the phases of M beams in each N group. A two-dimensional fiber array directs M x N beams to a first diffractive optical element combining the beams into N coherent beams of M beams each. Phase correction signals for the second stage are derived from a sample extracted from the N coherent beams. A second diffractive optical element combines the N coherent beams into the output beam using sample extracted from the output as corrections signals from the first stage.