Patent ID: 8463088

Claim:
A multi-channel optical device, comprising: multiple laser cavities that each reflects a different channel back and forth between reflective components, one of the reflective components being a common reflective device, the common reflective device receiving the channels from each of the laser cavities and reflecting the received channels, a multiplexer configured to receive the channels reflected by the common reflective device and to demultiplex the channels into demultiplexed channels; a portion of the reflective components being partial return devices that each receives one of the demultiplexed channels, each of the partial return devices configured to transmit a portion of the demultiplexed channel received by that partial return device such that the transmitted portion exits the laser cavity, and each of the partial return devices configured to reflect a portion of the demultiplexed channel received by that partial return device; and the multiplexer also being configured to receive the transmitted portions of the channels and to multiplex the transmitted portions into an output beam.