Patent ID: 7970023

Claim:
Fiber laser arrangement having a high beaming power, said fiber laser arrangement comprising: a plurality of continuously operating coherent individual fiber lasers; a common master oscillator which is operated in the longitudinal mode, and which distributes pumping energy into the individual fiber lasers, via a fiber splitter; a plurality of integrated electro-optical phase shifters, one such phase shifter being assigned to each individual fiber laser; and an electronic control unit: wherein said electronic control unit controls said phase shifters to displace the optical phases in individual fiber lasers to compensate atmospheric turbulence effects on a propagation path of the laser radiation to a target, so as to achieve optimal focusing of the entire laser radiation onto a remote target; wherein: to measure a phase front of light scattered back from the target on the propagation path of the laser radiation of the fiber laser arrangement, said scattered light is guided, via a first beam splitter situated in the propagation path, to wave front sensors; and measuring signals of the wave front sensors can be guided to the electronic control unit for determining signals for controlling the phase shifters; wherein for determining the respective phase differences among the individual fiber lasers, a second beam splitter is arranged in an output beam of the radiation emitted by the fiber laser arrangement; a laser phase sensor is assigned to the second splitter; and output signals of said laser phase sensor are guided to the electronic control unit; the fiber laser arrangement further comprises a local oscillator laser; said second beam splitter diverts a portion of the radiation emitted by the individual fiber lasers; a beam of the local oscillator laser is coherently mixed with said portion of the radiation that is diverted by the second beam splitter, and the combined radiation is guided to said laser phase sensor; and said electronic control unit determines respective phase differences, among the respective individual fiber lasers as a function of the mixed signals generated by said laser phase sensor and said wave front sensors.