We present a novel phase-locking mechanism based on ‘Gaussian coupling’ in which each laser element interacts with other elements in the array with constructive phase relations, and the coupling depends on the distance between the lasers as a Gaussian. An apodizer inserted in the Fourier plane of the degenerate cavity laser (DCL) provides Gaussian coupling among the laser elements to achieve positive phase-locking (in-phase) in the laser geometry. A Gaussian apodizer incorporated in the far-field plane that always couple the laser arrays into the ground-state solution (in-phase) regardless of laser array geometry, and the far-field aperture size. We experimentally demonstrated such arrangements based on the far-field coupling of laser arrays. The number of lasers was phase-locked (N) with each other and the coupling strength among the laser elements in the array determined by the apodizer size in the far-field plane.