A 100 W, near diffraction limited, copper HyBrID laser oscillator

Abstract

We report on the operation of a 6 cm bore copper HyBrID laser which incorporates a high-magnification (M = 280) negative-branch confocal optical resonator and utilizes a magnetic pulse compression excitation circuit. 125 W total output was obtained at a pulse repetition frequency of 12.5 kHz, of which 101 W (i.e. 80% of the total) was high beam quality output. `Power in the bucket' measurements revealed that of the high beam quality output was within the diffraction limit (62 rad), and within the diffraction limit.