Importance

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Abstract

The problems of collimating, synchronizing and combining a plurality of laser beams to generate a composite beam are substantially reduced by the use of one or more lasers especially adapted to lase in two or more separate wavelengths. Specifically, a composite beam generating system comprises at least one multiwavelength laser for emitting a multiwavelength beam having at least two separated wavelength components, one or more additional lasers for generating respective additional beams, and means for combining the multiwavelength beam with one or more additional beams. In a preferred embodiment, a four-component multiwavelength composite beam is generated by polarization combination of the outputs of a pair of orthogonally polarized two-component multiwavelength lasers. The preferred embodiment of a multiwavelength laser is a liquid dye laser having, as one of the reflecting means defining the resonant cavity, an optical reflector having a reflectivity versus wavelength characteristic with a local minimum of reflectivity between two regions of substantially greater reflectivity.

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First Claim