Apparatus for Coherent Beam Combining in an Array of Laser Collimators

A method for phase-locking a plurality of coherent laser beams in an array of laser beam collimators, comprising:

• providing an array of plurality of adjacently positioned laser beam sources for projecting a corresponding plurality of divergent laser beams having a Gaussian profile along a corresponding plurality of predetermined paths;
• positioning a respective one of a plurality of collimating lenses in the predetermined path of each of a respective corresponding one of the divergent laser beams so as to provide at an output of each collimating lens a corresponding collimated laser beam, and wherein each collimating lens is joined with adjacent collimating lenses such that an output aperture of the array is formed with a common vertex of the adjacently joined collimating lenses;
• positioning a concave mirror a distance from the output aperture so as to receive a fraction of each of the collimated laser beams that passed through a portion of each of the collimating lenses that are adjacent to the common vertex, and provide reflected fractional collimated laser beams;
• and
• intercepting the reflected fractional collimated laser beams with a sensor so as to provide a signal that is applied to synchronize the phase of the laser beam sources that provided the fractional collimated laser beams.