US 11,752,571 B1
Coherent beam coupler
Connor Magness, Tucson, AZ (US); Prabhuram Thiagarajan, Tucson, AZ (US); and Jason Helmrich, Tucson, AZ (US)
Assigned to LEONARDO ELECTRONICS US INC., Tucson, AZ (US)
Filed by LEONARDO ELECTRONICS US INC., Tucson, AZ (US)
Filed on Jun. 8, 2020, as Appl. No. 16/895,961.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/858,743, filed on Jun. 7, 2019.
Int. Cl. B23K 26/06 (2014.01); H01S 5/40 (2006.01); G02B 6/28 (2006.01); H01S 5/00 (2006.01)
CPC B23K 26/0604 (2013.01) [B23K 26/0643 (2013.01); B23K 26/0648 (2013.01); G02B 6/2813 (2013.01); H01S 5/005 (2013.01); H01S 5/4062 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A coherent beam coupled laser diode array, comprising:
an array of laser diodes, each diode emitting a beam propagating along a beam path;
an array of collimation optics, wherein each of the collimation optics collimates one beam emitted from the array of laser diodes;
a first lenslet array, wherein a first portion of each lenslet refracts a portion of one of the collimated beams, wherein a second portion of each lenslet refracts a portion of another of the collimated beams, and wherein the resulting collimated beams are spatially separated from each other by the first lenslet array;
a partially reflecting mirror, wherein a first portion of each beam refracted by the first lenslet array propagates through the partially reflecting mirror and a second portion of each beam refracted by the first lenslet array is reflected back toward the first lenslet array, and wherein the second portion of each beam reflected propagates back through the first lenslet array and the collimation optics and into one of the diodes in the array of laser diodes adjacent to the diode from which the second portion of each beam was emitted, thereby creating an optical cross coupling; and
a second lenslet array, wherein the second lenslet array collimates the first portion of each beam refracted by the first lenslet array propagating through each lenslet to form a single laser beam, and wherein the lenslets in the first and second lenslet arrays have a pitch smaller than a pitch of the collimation optics.