Claims
- 1. A phase-locked ridge waveguide laser, comprising:
- a body having a first and a second major wall and two minor walls extending between said major walls, said major and minor walls together circumferentially bounding an internal space within said body;
- a gaseous lasing medium contained in said internal space;
- excitation means disposed on said body for exciting said gaseous medium at radio frequency with attendant light emission from said gaseous medium;
- light-reflecting means positioned relative to said body in such a manner as to provide lasing of said light emission; and
- partitioning means for partitioning said internal space into at least three elongated laser resonator cavities each sustaining a guided mode of the lasing light emission, said partitioning means including a plurality of dielectric ridges connected to and extending in an alternating fashion from said first and from said second major walls of said body into and across said internal space toward the respective other of said first and second major walls and terminating a predetermined distance from said other of said first and second major walls to provide between themselves and the respective other of said first and second major walls respective gaps each of which connects two adjacent ones of said laser resonator cavities for phase-locking said guided modes in such cavities, said gaps being alternatively situated at said second and said first major walls to discriminate against higher-order transverse modes.
- 2. The gas laser as defined in claim 1, wherein each of said ridges extends more than half-way across the spacing between said major walls.
- 3. The gas laser as defined in claim 1, wherein said internal cavity and said ridges are substantially rectangular in cross section.
- 4. The gas laser is defined in claim 1, wherein said major and minor walls and said ridges have such configurations that said resonator cavities are substantially O-shaped in cross section.
Government Interests
The Government has rights in this invention pursuant to a contract awarded by the Department of the Air Force.
US Referenced Citations (3)
Number |
Name |
Date |
Kind |
4373202 |
Laakmann et al. |
Feb 1983 |
|
4577323 |
Newman et al. |
Mar 1986 |
|
4688228 |
Newman et al. |
Aug 1987 |
|
Non-Patent Literature Citations (1)
Entry |
L. A. Newman et al; "High Power Coupled CO.sub.2 Waveguide Laser Array"; Appl. Phys. Lett. 48(25), Jun. 23, 1986; pp. 1701-1703. |