Patent ID: 11942753
Assignee: KERN TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
Field: Optics (Instruments)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A laser comprising:
a resonator cavity;
a plurality of slab waveguides within the resonator cavity each providing a volume for accommodating a gain medium; and
at least one cavity folding assembly configured to direct a radiation beam emitted from one of the slab waveguides into another of the slab waveguides,
wherein the slab waveguides are physically arranged above one another in a stack and optically arranged in series through the or each cavity folding assembly,
wherein each slab waveguide has a thickness sized to support at least one waveguide mode vertically in the slab waveguide and a width sized to support free space modes horizontally across the slab waveguide, and
wherein the or each cavity folding assembly is configured to focus the radiation beam emitted from said one of the slab waveguides by an amount selected to couple at least the EH11 waveguide mode into said other of the slab waveguides,
wherein the resonator cavity is bounded by first and second cavity end mirrors, and wherein the first and second cavity end mirrors and the or each cavity folding assembly are jointly configured such that the free space modes come to a focus part way along one of the slab waveguides.