Abstract

Unstable resonators with high magnification provide high extraction efficiency and diffraction limited beam quality simultaneously. Unfortunately, in solid state lasers low output coupling or magnification, respectively, is required, which results in a high energy fraction in the sidelobe of the far field. To make high magnification unstable resonators applicable to low gain media, we used the excitation of the converging wave to decrease the output coupling of unstable resonators.

© 1989 Optical Society of America