Patent ID: 6952510

Claim:
A method of improving the efficiency of fiber coupled laser, said method comprising the steps of: creating light from a plurality of light sources, said light moving away from said light source with different divergence patterns in different axes; directing said light from said plurality of light sources to impact a diffraction grating, such that light diffracted from said diffraction grating can be focused efficiently into an optical fiber aperture having a certain shape; and prior to said light impacting on said grating, optically changing said divergence of light in at least one divergence axis so that said light diffracted from said grating arrives at a focusing point having a cross-section optimized for said fiber aperture shape, wherein a fast axis and slow axis of said light are reversed after said optically changing, and wherein said diffraction grating anamorphically modifies said light such that said light possesses substantially equal divergence in each axes when said light enters said optical fiber aperture.