Light-emitting adder

A light-emitting adder comprising at least two light sources with stripe-geometry emission regions in the sections perpendicular to the optical axes of said light sources, the mutually perpendicular sides of the light-emitting stripes at the output ends of said light sources having a long dimension and a short dimension. a target area and imaging means interposed between said light sources and a focusing zone and including beam-shaping means provided with means for collimating beams in mutually perpendicular directions parallel to the sides of said light-emitting stripes, as well as focusing means for focusing onto said focusing zone, the output end of each light source being spaced apart from said focusing zone at distances equal to the optical lengths L, characterized in that said light sources are in the form of laser diodes selected in order to allow the emission at one at least wavelength λ, and are located in a plane perpendicular to the long or the short dimension of said light-emitting stripes, said beam-shaping means being provided, at the laser diodes' end and for each of them, with means for collimating beams in the direction parallel to the short dimension of each stripe, said adder further comprising at least one beam-transporting means capable, on at least a part of its extent, of partly overlapping the beams, and there being positioned, downstream of said beam-transporting means within said beam-shaping means, collimating means for collimating beams in the direction parallel to the long dimension of the stripes, and there being further provided, in said focusing zone, at least partly reflecting means, the values of optical lengths L being selected within the range L−ΔL÷ L+ΔL. where ΔL is deviation of said optical lengths L and the combination of deviations ΔL, of the optical lengths and deviations δλ of the wavelengths, for at least one pair of laser diodes located symmetrically about the adder's optical axis, being taken so as to satisfy the coherence condition ΔL≦πλ2/8δλ whereas for the remaining laser diodes, the deviation ΔL of the optical lengths is taken so as not to exceed 10% of said optical lengths L.

A light-emitting adder comprising at least two light sources with stripe-geometry emission regions in the sections perpendicular to the optical axes of said light sources, the mutually perpendicular sides of the light-emitting stripes at the output ends of said light sources having a long dimension and a short dimension, a target area and imaging means interposed between said light sources and a focusing zone and including beam-shaping means provided with means for collimating beams in mutually perpendicular directions parallel to the sides of said light-emitting stripes, as well as focusing means for focusing onto said focusing zone, the output end of each light source being spaced apart from said focusing zone at distances equal to the optical lengths L, characterized in that at least two additional light sources are provided, all the light sources are laser diodes, selected in order to allow the emission at one at least wavelength λ and arranged so as to have at least two sources in each of two mutually perpendicular planes, each of these planes being perpendicular to the long or the short dimension of the respective light-emitting stripes, said imaging means further comprising, in addition to said first beam-shaping means, second beam-shaping means, both said beam-shaping means being coupled to at least two light sources and provided, at said sources' end and for each of them, with means for collimating beams in the direction parallel to the short dimension of the light-emitting stripe, said first beam-shaping means further including at least one beam-transporting means capable on at least a part of its extent, of partly overlapping the beams, said second beam-shaping means also incorporating at least one beam-transporting means capable, on at least in part of its extent, of partly overlapping the beams, said adder further including, downstream of said beam-transporting means and within each of said beam-shaping means, one collimating means for collimating beams in the direction parallel to the long dimension of the light-emitting stripes, the respective optical axes of said beam-shaping means being mutually perpendicular and there being additionally provided, at their intersection downstream of said beam-shaping means, a polarizer allowing, during the operation of the apparatus, to transmit the collimated beam from one of said beam-shaping means. to cause the total internal reflection of the collimated beam from other of said beam-shaping means, and to obtain a resulting beam on whose axis said focusing means are mounted downstream of said polarizer, whereas in said focusing zone there is placed at least partly reflecting means, the values of optical lengths L being selected within the range L−ΔL÷L+ΔL, where ΔL is deviation of said optical lengths L and the combination of deviations ΔL of the optical lengths and deviations δλ of the wavelengths, for at least one pair of laser diodes located symmetrically about the adder's optical axis, being taken so as to satisfy the coherence condition ΔL≦πλ2/8δλ, whereas for the remaining laser diodes, the deviation ΔL of the optical lengths is taken so as not to exceed 10% of said optical lengths L.