US 11,934,048 B2
Photonic integrated circuit-based coherently phased array laser transmitter
Stephen P. Palese, Redondo Beach, CA (US); and Avram Bar-Cohen, late of, CA (US)
Assigned to Raytheon Company, Tewksbury, MA (US)
Filed by Raytheon Company, Waltham, MA (US)
Filed on Jan. 29, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/162,860.
Prior Publication US 2022/0244578 A1, Aug. 4, 2022
Int. Cl. G02F 1/01 (2006.01); G01J 1/42 (2006.01); H01S 5/024 (2006.01); H01S 5/04 (2006.01); H01S 5/40 (2006.01)
CPC G02F 1/011 (2013.01) [G01J 1/4257 (2013.01); H01S 5/02469 (2013.01); H01S 5/041 (2013.01); H01S 5/40 (2013.01); G02F 2203/50 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An apparatus comprising:
a photonic integrated circuit comprising at least one splitter configured to split at least one input beam into multiple input beamlets, the photonic integrated circuit further comprising multiple phase modulators configured to phase-shift at least some of the input beamlets;
an array of optical amplifiers configured to amplify the phase-shifted input beamlets and generate amplified beamlets;
a beam combiner configured to combine the amplified beamlets and generate an output beam;
at least one optic configured to direct the amplified beamlets towards the beam combiner, the at least one optic comprising at least one diffractive optical element configured to diffract at least some of the amplified beamlets by different amounts while the amplified beamlets are passing through the at least one diffractive optical element in order to direct the amplified beamlets towards the beam combiner; and
a controller configured to control the phase modulators in order to adjust phasing of the phase-shifted input beamlets.