Staggered hollow-bore CO2 waveguide laser array

A modified hollow-bore ridge waveguide, utilizing a staggered ridge geometry, has been used successfully to obtain single-frequency operation from an array of CO2 waveguide lasers. The gain volume of the array is equivalent to six waveguide lasers of 37 cm length and 2.25×2.25 mm2 cross section. The output power from the sealed-off device reached 68 W cw. Stable single-frequency operation in the antisymmetric supermode was observed.