Off-axis unstable laser resonator: operation.

An experimental investigation of a novel unstable laser resonator configuration is reported. The purpose of the novel configuration is to maximize the area that can be illuminated with uniform intense flux by a given laser device. This is accomplished by displacing the optical axis of the resonator to one edge of the optical cavity. The results indicate that the change causes no loss of device output power and has little effect on the beam quality. Additional experimental results are presented indicating the sensitivity of resonator performance to misalignment of the off-axis resonator.