Waveguide laser resonators with a tilted mirror

Abstract

We present a multimode theory of square-bore waveguide laser resonators with one well-aligned and one tilted plane mirror. Our theoretical results for mode content, resonator loss, and power output agree reasonably well with experimental results from an RF-excited CO <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> laser with a <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">376 \times 1.5 \times 1.5</tex> mm Al/Al <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> O <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</inf> waveguide. The mode propagation coefficients of this structure are discussed. We model a diffraction grating as a plane mirror with a wavelength-dependent tilt, and conclude that previous single-mode theory has underestimated the severity of the line-hopping constraint on tunable waveguide CO <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> laser performance.