Patent ID: 7974543

Claim:
An optical device that provides an optical beam combining with compensation of the beam wavefront distortions, comprising: 2 M input waveguides, where M is integer≧2, receiving portions of the optical beam; wherein the incoming optical beam wavefront is spatially divided into 1 sections across the wavefront each i th section has its own phase φ i depending on i th optical path from a transmitter to the optical device, wherein 2≦i≦1; each i th input waveguide receives i th portion of the optical beam from i th section across the beam wavefront; (2 M −1) couplers; each coupler is formed by two waveguides, coming in and out of the coupler; control means for changing an input phase of the i th optical beam portion before its coupling; one output waveguide forming an input waveguide for a consequent optical coupler from (2 M −1) couplers; an output waveguide from the last coupler forming an output beam of the device; and wherein the control means is used to compensate phase distortions occurred in the beam portion while travelling in free space; the control means change the input phases to maximize the output beam energy.