Patent ID: 7120175

Claim:
A laser array architecture, comprising: an array of laser fiber amplifiers; a master oscillator generating a pump signal at a fundamental frequency; means for coupling the pump signal into each of the laser fiber amplifiers; at least one array of nonlinear crystals functioning as harmonic generators; means for coupling amplified pump signals from the laser fiber amplifiers into respective nonlinear crystals, which generate an array of output sub-beams at a desired harmonic frequency means for detecting phase differences in the output sub-beams comprising: optical splitting means for obtaining a sample of each of the output sub-beams; a frequency shifting device connected to vary the frequency of a selected one of the output sub-beam samples; and a multi-element detector array, each element of which records the result of interfering one of the sub-beam samples with the selected frequency-shifted sample, and generates a phase difference signal; wherein the selected output sub-beam is used as phase reference and the other sub-beams are adjusted to be phase coherent with the selected sub-beam; and and a plurality of phase modulators for adjusting the phases of the laser amplifier input signals in response to the detected phase differences, resulting in phase coherency among the output sub-beams.