High power chemical lasers often have high aspect ratio gain regions, for which an unstable resonator with different magnifications in the two transverse dimensions is desirable. This paper considers a new class of unstable resonators which achieves the differential magnification property with spherical mirrors by suitably tilting the mirrors through large angles. Output optical quality has bee...

The thermal lens effect of the TGG crystal is investigated theoretically and experimentally. The theoretical analysis is demonstrated by the experimental measurements on a home-made frequency-doubled Nd:YVO(4) laser with single-frequency operation. In the presence of the thermal lens effect of the TGG crystal, the output power can be optimized by shortening the distance between the cavity mirro...

Relay mirrors offer a method of extending the range and efficacy of laser weapons systems by providing a platform that can relay the high power beam from the source to a target at a lower cost than building more laser weapons. Most laser weapons’ platforms use a Cassegrain aperture telescope to project the high-power beam to a target. Diffraction causes power in the projected beam to move out b...

To obtain high-brightness quasi-monochromatic X-rays via inverse Compton scattering (ICS), an optical cavity for intensifying laser beams was designed and implemented in a new beam line at the KEK Superconducting RF Test Facility (STF) accelerator. The optical cavity adopts a planar configuration consisting of 4 mirrors. This confocal type resonator provides stable laser storage even with a lon...

The advent of ultrahigh-power femtosecond lasers creates a need for an entirely new class of optical components based on plasmas. The most promising of these are known as plasma mirrors, formed when an intense femtosecond laser ionizes a solid surface. These mirrors specularly reflect the main part of a laser pulse and can be used as active optical elements to manipulate its temporal and spatia...

Reflecting light from a mirror moving close to the speed of light has been envisioned as a route towards producing bright X-ray pulses since Einstein's seminal work on special relativity. For an ideal relativistic mirror, the peak power of the reflected radiation can substantially exceed that of the incident radiation due to the increase in photon energy and accompanying temporal compression. H...

Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VECSELs) are a type of laser that have been found to be useful in situations requiring high output power and pulses of short duration. The typical VECSEL is composed of (at least) two mirrors: the active or gain mirror where the light is amplified and reflected and an outcoupling mirror where some laser light is allowed to exit the laser. When o...