Patent ID: 7010194

Claim:
A method of coupling laser-radiation into an optical fiber, comprising the steps of: (i) providing a plurality of diode-laser bars, each of said diode-laser bars including at least first and second spaced-apart diode-laser emitters emitting respectively first and second beams of laser-radiation; (ii) optically combining said first and second laser-radiation beams from each of said diode-laser bars to form a plurality of third laser-radiation beams, each of said third laser-radiation beams including co-propagating ones of said first and second laser-radiation beams from a corresponding diode-laser bar; and (iii) focusing said third laser-radiation beams into an entrance face of the optical fiber wherein each said of emitters in a said diode-laser bar has an emitting-aperture having a height and a width, said emitted laser-radiation beam being emitted from each emitting-aperture and diverging unequally in fast and slow axes perpendicular to each other and mutually perpendicular to the propagation path of said laser-radiation beams, said fast axis being aligned perpendicular to the width direction of said emitters; and wherein said third laser-radiation beams are parallel to each other and are aligned in the fast-axis direction.