Patent ID: 6975294

Claim:
A bandwidth-enhanced laser imaging system comprising: a plurality of lasing elements, each lasing element emitting a laser beam with a center wavelength λ 0i and a spectral bandwidth Δλ i , wherein the center wavelength of at least one of the lasing elements is wavelength-shifted with respect to the center wavelength of at least one other lasing element, and imaging optics that combines the respective laser beams, wherein said combined laser beams have an ensemble spectrum Λ with an overlap parameter γ={overscore (Δλ i )}/{overscore (S i )}, with {overscore (Δλ i )} being a mean spectral bandwidth of the lasing elements and {overscore (S i )} being a mean wavelength shift between the center wavelengths λ 0i of the at least one and the at least one other lasing elements, with {overscore (Δλ i )} and {overscore (S i )} being selected so that γ≧1.