Patent ID: 7848370

Claim:
A coherent laser system with enhanced optical power comprised of: a single reference emitter producing a reference beam at an optical frequency f 1 ; a multiplicity of tunable optical emitters producing a corresponding number of seed beams, each at an optical frequency f n changeable by an electrical drive signal; a multiplicity of optical amplifiers producing a corresponding number of amplified beams; a multiplicity of high-speed photodetectors; a multiplicity of low-speed photodetectors; a multiplicity of electronic feedback circuits generating electrical control signals; whereby the tunable optical emitters and reference emitter are arranged such that each seed beam interferes with a portion of the reference beam to produce an optical beat signal at a frequency f n -f 1 on the high-speed photodetector, wherein the high-speed photodetector transforms the optical beat signal into a high-bandwidth intermediate electrical signal which is input to the electronic feedback circuit, this circuit generating the electrical drive signal which maintains the tunable optical emitter at the precise optical frequency f n , wherein the tunable optical emitter is followed in a series arrangement by an optical amplifier that increases the optical power of the tunable optical emitter, which is then followed by a low-speed photodetector that produces a low bandwidth intermediate electrical signal which is based on the pair wise interference characteristics between amplified beams, this low-bandwidth intermediate electrical signal input to the same electronic feedback circuit to generate the electrical drive signal sufficient to maintain the tunable optical emitter at the precise phase required for efficient coherent power addition of the multiplicity of amplified beams.