Abstract: A laser apparatus in which the elimination of separate optical components to provide intra-cavity polarization and compensation for thermally induced birefringence, and their associated losses, results in an improvement in efficiency and reduction in complexity over prior art designs.

Abstract: A beam blocking and combining optic comprising a wedged optically transparent substrate with a hard dielectric coating applied to a beam combining side of the substrate. The coating has a high reflectance at a laser wavelength and high transmittance at visible wavelengths. The single optical component can combine laser beams into a viewing path and act as a laser safety filter to protect the viewer from reflected laser radiation while providing good color balance and very low astigmatism in the viewing path and very low astigmatism in the reflected laser beam.