Abstract

An intuitive technique has been developed in which the lowest- and the higher-order modes for unstable resonators having rectangular or circular mirrors are derived. Instead of two mirrors, it considers the resonator to consist of a train of diffractive edges that are virtual images of the edge of the feedback mirror. Circular-mirror unstable resonators are shown not to exhibit the exact geometrical mode even at high Fresnel numbers.

© 1986 Optical Society of America

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Paul Horwitz
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Opt. Lett. 6(10) 487-489 (1981)

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Kurt Edmund Oughstun
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Alvin R. Larson
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Raúl I. Hernández-Aranda, Sabino Chávez-Cerda, and Julio C. Gutiérrez-Vega
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 22(9) 1909-1917 (2005)