Emission characteristics of a pulsed CO2 laser with a self-filtering unstable resonator under conditions of a strong self-interaction of radiation in the active medium. II. Results of experiments and optimization of the output characteristics

Theoretical and experimental investigations were made of the dynamics of an atmospheric-pressure pulsed CO₂ laser with a self-filtering unstable resonator pumped by pulses of ~ 40 μs duration. The resonator ensured that the divergence of the output radiation was close to the diffraction limit even when the active medium was so inhomogeneous that the output intensity suffered 100% modulation. The results demonstrated that the output characteristics could be improved by optimization of the resonator parameters.