Patent ID: 7995280

Claim:
A method of generating a beam of light, comprising: exciting a plurality of longitudinal laser modes and combining light generated by the plurality of longitudinal laser modes to form a first beam of laser light, each of the plurality of longitudinal laser modes being excited in the same cavity of a laser; separating the first beam of laser light into at least one first partial beam and at least one second partial beam; and combining the at least one first partial beam and the at least one second partial beam to form a second combined beam of laser light traversing a beam shaping optics to be incident on an object plane; wherein for each of the plurality of longitudinal laser modes: a) separating and combining includes separating light of the longitudinal laser mode into at least first and second separated light portions and differently manipulating the first and second separated light portions, b) differently manipulating the first and second separated light portions includes generating an optical delay between the first and second separated light portions, and c) the optical delay has a length such that the first and second separated light portions have a temporal overlap.