Patent ID: 7817688

Claim:
A laser beam combining device, comprising: a phase and polarization module configured to provide a plurality of laser beams that are phase-locked and pair-wise orthogonally polarized, the plurality of laser beams comprising at least a first laser beam and a second laser beam, the first laser beam having a first phase, the second laser beam having a second phase, the first phase and the second phase being phase locked with respect to each other, the first laser beam having a first polarization, the second laser beam having a second polarization, the first polarization being orthogonal to the second polarization; a controller configured to control the phase and polarization module to manipulate phase and polarization for each laser beam of the plurality of laser beams; a first beam combiner configured to combine the first laser beam and the second laser beam and to provide an output laser beam; a dark port detector configured to detect an intensity value output from the first beam combiner; a non-polarizing beam splitter configured to receive the output laser beam; and a variable polarization component, wherein the non-polarizing beam splitter is configured to divert a sample of the output laser beam as feedback to the variable polarization component, the variable polarization component is configured to variably polarize the sample of the output laser beam to provide a feedback input to the controller, and the controller is configured to manipulate, based on the feedback input to the controller, at least one of a first polarity and a second polarity to alter a polarization of the output laser beam, according to a variable polarization of the variable polarization component, wherein the phase and polarization module comprises: a first polarizer configured to polarize the first laser beam; and a second polarizer configured to polarize the second laser beam.