Patent ID: 7065110

Claim:
A laser array architecture, comprising: an array of laser fiber amplifiers; a master oscillator generating a pump beam at a frequency ω 1 ; means for coupling the pump beam into each of the laser fiber amplifiers; means for generating a secondary beam at a frequency ω 2 ; an array of optical parametric amplifiers; means for coupling amplified pump beams from the laser fiber amplifiers into respective optical parametric amplifiers; means for coupling the secondary beam into each of the optical parametric amplifiers, wherein the optical parametric amplifiers generate an array of high power output sub-beams having a signal frequency ω s that is the difference between frequencies ω 1 and ω 2 ; means for detecting phase differences in the output sub-beams; and a plurality of phase modulators for adjusting the phases of the laser amplifier input beams in response to the detected phase differences, resulting in phase coherency among the output sub-beams; wherein the frequency ω 2 is selected to provide a desired output signal frequency ω s .