Abstract

Reduction of the beam divergence of a solid-state slab-geometry laser by using an off-axis unstable–stable resonator is described. The resonator acts as an off-axis negative-branch unstable resonator in the slab-width direction. This resonator configuration yields a small beam divergence of 2.5 mrad in the unstable-resonator direction at an average output power of 120 W. This improvement in beam quality is achieved without appreciable loss of efficiency.

© 1990 Optical Society of America

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