This paper describes semiconductor laser arrays placed in an external Talbot cavity. The external Talbot cavity couples the light between many adjacent lasers such that all lasers operate at the same frequency and phase, resulting in a high power diffraction limited output beam. We designed a compact cavity which is comprised of a 30 by 50 element monolithic 2-D laser array, a GaP mass transport lens array, a liquid crystal array, a phase sensing and control system and a waveguide. Initial results obtained from a 20 element linear Ta1bOt cavity with a calculated mode discrimination similar to the 2-D cavity demonstrate in excess of 30 mW cw per laser element in a diffraction limited far field. In addition we have also demonstrated 50 Watt CW incoherent output power from a monolithic 2D laser array