Patent ID: 8184361

Claim:
A fiber amplifier system comprising: a plurality of master oscillators each generating a signal beam at a different wavelength; a plurality of splitters each receiving one of the signal beams and splitting the signal beam into a plurality of fiber beams; a plurality of phase modulators including a separate phase modulator for each fiber beam split by each splitter, said phase modulators each receiving one of the fiber beams and providing phase modulation; a plurality of fiber amplifiers where a separate fiber amplifier is provided for each fiber beam, each fiber amplifier receiving a fiber beam from one of the phase modulators, said fiber amplifiers amplifying the fiber beam, said fiber amplifiers each including an output end; a plurality of tapered fiber bundles where a separate tapered fiber bundle is provided for each master oscillator wavelength group, each tapered fiber bundle including an input end and an output end, said input end of each tapered fiber bundle being coupled to the output end of all of the fiber amplifiers that receive the same wavelength signal beam, said output end of each tapered fiber bundle being a combined fiber including a portion of all of the fiber amplifiers receiving the same wavelength signal beam with fiber cores in a single fiber mass, each tapered fiber bundle outputting a combined beam at the wavelength received by the fiber amplifiers; a plurality of end caps where a separate end cap is optically coupled to the output end of each tapered fiber bundle, said end caps expanding the combined beam from the tapered fiber bundle; and a spectral beam combination (SBC) grating receiving all of the combined beams from the tapered fiber bundles at different angles and outputting an output beam of all of the combined beams as a single beam being directed in the same direction.