Abstract: RF excited gas laser consists of a laser tube having external surfaces; a power supply compartment having elongated external fins and a pair of endplates on its opposite ends and wherein laser tube is placed between and is flexibly attached to the endplates; a sheet-metal cover mounted to the endplates and to power supply compartment and forming a laser assembly and having at least one pair of intake openings and at least one pair of exhaust openings for the cooling air to flow through the laser assembly by entering the laser assembly through the intake openings and flowing over power supply external fins and over laser tube external surfaces and then exiting through the exhaust openings. Present invention is characterized by lower cost and more efficient forced air cooling laser tube and RF power supply.

Abstract: RF excited gas laser according to present invention consists of an elongated electronics compartment having elongated external fins; an RF power supply placed inside electronics compartment; a pair of endplates attached to the opposite ends of the electronics compartment; a sealed laser tube comprising of a metal tube having an external surface, a pair of endcaps at the opposite ends of the metal tube forming a vacuum envelope for containing a laser gas, a pair of elongated electrodes inside of the metal tube configured for coupling to said RF power supply through RF coupling means; laser resonator mirrors placed on the endcaps at the opposite ends of the tube forming a laser resonator aligned with the RF gas plasma discharge produced between said electrodes; a sheet-metal cover enclosing the laser tube and the electronics compartment forming a laser assembly having at least one pair of intake openings and at least one pair of exhaust openings for the cooling air to flow through the laser assembly; and at lea

Abstract: A laser includes a split-wave hybrid resonator that produces a high quality laser beam from a low gain laser medium. The split-wave hybrid resonator includes a resonator cavity formed by a pair of resonator mirror surfaces positioned at opposite ends of the laser medium and a pair of resonator walls positioned on opposite sides of the resonator cavity. The resonator walls are separated from each other by a separation distance such that the resonator cavity has a Fresnel number between approximately 0.5 and 1.5. At least one of the resonator walls includes a first ring oscillation filter adjacent to the lasing medium to filter out ring oscillations within the laser medium. One or more of the resonator walls may include first and second wall portions angled with respect to each other to form a wave-front splitting interferometer. The resonator mirrors are tilted off-axis with respect to the resonator walls.