The properties of a new class of lasers are investigated theoretically and experimentally. In these lasers, the radiation propagates radially within a disk-shaped amplifying medium resulting in high fields and symmetric illumination at the resonator axis. Experiments have been conducted using a pulsed CO <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf> TEA configuration.