Diffraction effects in a cw HF chemical laser with an unstable telescopic resonator

A self-consistent problem is solved for the radiation field structure of a supersonic cw HF chemical laser with an unstable telescopic resonator (steady-state stimulated emission conditions). The structure of the amplitude and phase diagrams of the laser field in the near and far zones is analyzed for typical conditions, the energy characteristics are calculated, and the angular divergence of the laser radiation is determined for different resonator magnifications. It is shown that using a telescopic resonator in cw HF lasers substantially increases the directionality of the radiation with a moderate decrease in the system efficiency.