Patent ID: 7187492

Claim:
A coherent laser beam combining system comprised of: a. a master oscillator having a 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. means for modulating each of the N output signals of said power splitter with a unique electronic frequency, wherein one of said N output signals is selected as a reference signal and the modulation frequencies are selected such that a beat note between said reference signal and the remaining (M=N−1) modulated slave signals can be uniquely isolated; d. M optical phase adjusting elements for receiving said M modulated slave signals and outputting M phase modulated signals; e. means for amplifying said N modulated output signals; f. means for optically co-aligning said N amplified signals; g. means for sampling said N optically aligned signals; h. an imaging system for directing said N sampled signals onto a photodetector; i. means for signal processing the output of said photodetector, thereby to isolate and extract phase control signals for each M slave signal and to apply said phase control signals to said M optical phase adjusting elements using negative feedback to cancel the phase difference between each M slave signal and said reference signal, thereby resulting in a high-powered optically-coherent laser beam output.