Transverse mode control in high gain, millimeter bore, waveguide lasers
Abstract
The paper presents a method for obtaining TEM(00) transverse mode operation in visible wavelength lasers with bore diameters of 0.1 1.0 mm. Mode control is achieved by confining the lasing medium in a waveguide and placing each resonator mirror so that its focal plane, rather than its center of curvature, lies at the nearest waveguide opening. With this procedure the far-field pattern of the field distribution emerging from the waveguide opening is focused by the mirror back into the waveguide, and, for proper choice of mirror curvature, over 99% of the energy couples into the two lowest order modes of the waveguide. By means of this technique a pulsed laser pumped waveguide dye laser has been made to produce a mode of the same quality as a TEM(00) mode cw HeNe laser. A model of TEM(00) mode coupling to EH(11) plus EH(12) modes is presented.
- Publication:
-
IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics
- Pub Date:
- October 1977
- DOI:
- 10.1109/JQE.1977.1069239
- Bibcode:
- 1977IJQE...13..813R
- Keywords:
-
- Dye Lasers;
- High Gain;
- Laser Modes;
- Optical Pumping;
- Optical Waveguides;
- Coupled Modes;
- Far Fields;
- Focal Plane Devices;
- Helium-Neon Lasers;
- Mirrors;
- Optical Resonators;
- Propagation Modes;
- Lasers and Masers