High-power waveguide laser

US4939738A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• Deutsche Forschung -und Versuchsanstalt · DE

Inventor

• Hans Opower · Krailling, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Aug 30, 1989
• Grant date: Jul 3, 1990
• Expiry date: Aug 30, 2009

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H01S3/08095
• WIPO field: Optics
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

In order to improve an electrically excited, diffusion-cooled highpower laser comprising two wall surfaces slightly spaced from one another and forming an optical waveguide, the width of the wall surfaces being a multiple of the space between them and the surfaces enclosing between them a flow-free discharge chamber, and also comprising an optical resonator having resonator mirrors disposed at both ends of said waveguide, such that his results in a laser beam which can be well focused, it is suggested that the resonator be an optically unstable resonator including a beam path extending lengthwise of a resonator axis and having an expansion transverse to the resonator axis extending as far as at least one exiting laser beam and that the transverse expansion extend transversely to a longitudinal direction of the waveguide and approximately parallel to the wall surfaces.