Investigation of the divergence of radiation emitted by a photodissociation laser with an inhomogeneous active medium

An investigation was made of the dependence of the energy and divergence of laser radiation on the length of a plane-parallel resonator. The results were in agreement with estimates based on relationships derived in the geometric-optics framework. An analysis was made of the possibility of obtaining highly directional radiation from a laser with a nonresonant feedback and parameters of this radiation were measured. It was found that the experimentally achieved divergence was close to the "amplifier divergence" (θ~2l_a∇n ≈ θ_amp) and the energy losses were still relatively low.