Beam reformatting of one- and two-dimensional arrays of CO2 waveguide lasers

The conversion of a linear to rectangular array beam is demonstrated for mu lti-element RF excited CO2 waveguide lasers using the two-mirror beam shapi ng technique introduced by Clarkson and Hanna. High efficiency conversion o f a one-dimensional array into a rectangular array format has been achieved with the reformatting mirrors in the near-field and with no auxiliary opti cal elements. The brightness of a 2-kW 64-element two-dimensional array has been enhanced by a factor of 2 using a modified version of the reformattin g technique to improve the fill factor of the array beam.