A unique and significant advantage of the self-referenced LOCSET technique is that one of the array elements serves as the reference beam. This results in a simpler, more robust phase-locked array architecture. To date, LOCSET is the only optical phase-locking method that provides this possibility. Furthermore, this method only requires a single photo-detector. The phase-locking accuracy was measured to be λ/60. In addition, the phase-locking accuracy is independent of the number of array elements. We have phase-locked five 145-W fiber amplifiers with this system for a total locked power of 725 W. The 725-W fiber-amplifier array demonstrated identical phase-locking accuracy to that of the passive phase-locked arrays. Recent results will be presented concerning scaling to higher-power elements. A detailed discussion of the experimental system, rms phase error measurements will be presented.
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