Designing Aberration-Corrected Solid Unstable Resonators

Abstract

In improved method of designing solid unstable resonator of laser diode, shapes of mirrors calculated to yield specified mode. Ray tracing used to compute shape of initially unspecified end mirror, given shape of initially specified end mirror and specified output mode. No need to accept aberrations or suboptimal circular shapes, to make iterative design computations in effort to converge on desired mode, or to assume paraxiality of rays: Angles between rays and optical axis large, cross sections of surfaces noncircular, and computed shape of end mirror exact. End mirror corrects for all aberrations.