Patent ID: 7796326

Claim:
A system whereby a narrow linewidth coherent laser source when transmitted as a plurality of output signals and subsequently detected at a distance appears to produce the uniform illumination characteristics of an incoherent source thereby suppressing laser speckle and environmentally induced scintillation effects, the system comprised of: a. a master oscillator having a narrow linewidth coherent laser output signal; b. a 1×N power splitter, whereby the output signal of the master oscillator is split into a plurality of N output signals; c. N optical phase modulators, whereby each of said N output signals is modulated by a unique electronic frequency provided by phase modulator drive electronics, the phase modulations being selected to minimize the apparent incoherence factor (ACF) according to predetermined design criteria, said ACF defined as ACF =  1 τ ⁢ ∫ T T + τ ⁢ [ ∑ i = 1 N ⁢ ∑ j = i + 1 N ⁢ [ A i ⁡ ( t i ) ⁢ A j ⁡ ( t j ) · Cos ⁢ ( ⁢ ϕ j ⁢ ⁢ 0 - ϕ i ⁢ ⁢ 0 + β i · Sin ⁡ [ ω RF - i · t RF - i + ξ RF - i ] - β j · Sin ⁡ [ ω RF - j · t RF - j + ξ RF - j ] ) ] ] · ⅆ t 1 τ · ∫ T T + τ ⁢ ∑ i = 1 N ⁢ [ A i ⁡ ( t i ) 2 2 ] · ⁢ ⅆ t  where τ, is the integration time, ω RF-i are the electronic frequencies of the induced phase modulation, β i are the phase modulation amplitudes, A i (t i ) are the real field amplitudes, ξ RF-i are the phases of the phase modulation apparatus, and φ i represents the phase shift accumulated by the ith optical field as it travels from the source to the observation point; d. N optical amplifiers to amplify said N phase modulated output signals; and e. means for directing said N output signals to an object to be illuminated so that they overlap on the object.