Influence of thermal deformation of mirrors on the characteristics of an unstable resonator of a gas-discharge CO2 laser

A description is given of a procedure used in numerical solution of the self-consistent problem of finding the radiation field and thermoelastic deformations of rectangular mirror sheets in a telescopic resonator of a continuous-flow gas-discharge CO₂ laser. The results obtained are compared with the case when the resonator mirrors are undeformed. An analysis is made of the mutual influence of the radiation and thermal distortions of the mirrors, and of the effects of these distortions on the divergence of the output beam of such a laser.