Coherent beam combining is a power scaling technique, where multiple laser beams are combined into a single output with preserved beam quality and correspondingly enhanced power. The key to success in CBC is ensuring that all combined beams share a stable mutual coherence: their phases must be precisely synchronized and their wavefronts properly aligned.

Achieving and maintaining this delicate phase alignment typically involves fine-tuning the path length of each beam. Fiber optic delay lines solve this challenge by allowing operators to adjust the optical path length with high accuracy and stability.

Coherent beam combining (CBC)