Triple slab radiofrequency discharged CO2 laser

The operation of a laser having both the advantages of large area discharges and those of laser arrays is reported. The laser consists.of three parallel optical channels (slabs) with a rectangular section. Locked emission due to distributed coupling of the three slabs is observed. The resulting far-field pattern displays the presence of a symmetric central lobe corresponding to a 2 Mrad divergence and some residual sidelobes due to the laser periodic structure in one transverse direction. Such a far-field can be handled by Talbot imaging techniques, and the structure can be scaled to a higher number of channels.