CO2 large-area discharge laser using an unstable-waveguide hybrid resonator

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Abstract
A one-dimensional unstable resonator combining free-space and waveguide propagation is used to efficiently extract power from a large-area gain medium in a slab waveguide CO2 laser. A power of 240 W in a near-diffraction-limited beam has been attained at 12% conversion efficiency from a 38 cm gain length in a compact sealed-off laser head, corresponding to a specific power extraction of 14 kW m−2 of discharge area.