Patent ID: 7356066

Claim:
A solid state laser, comprising: a crystal wafer forming an active laser medium of the laser, said crystal wafer having a totally reflective flat side and having a mid-axis; said crystal wafer being formed with an excitation surface on a flat side opposite said totally reflective flat side; a pump light source for generating a pump light beam disposed to illuminate said excitation surface of said crystal wafer; a resonator mirror configuration spatially separated from said crystal wafer, said resonator mirror configuration including a semitransparent end mirror and at least one folding mirror having optical axes inclined relative to said mid-axis of said crystal wafer to cause a laser beam propagating inside said resonator mirror configuration to strike said at least one folding mirror at an oblique angle, thereby subdividing the excitation surface into smaller sub-surfaces, through which the generated laser beam passes in succession, so that said folding mirror or folding mirrors are disposed to optically couple together sub-surfaces of said excitation surface respectively assigned to one another pairwise.