United Technologies Corporation

Archie D Heath

Leon A Newman

John T Kennedy

Richard A Hart

A phase-locked ridge waveguide gas laser includes a body having two major and two minor limiting surfaces together circumferentially bounding an internal space within the body, which contains a gaseous lasing medium. The gaseous medium is excited at radio frequency with attendant light emission from the gaseous medium. Mirrors are so positioned relative to the body as to provide lasing of the light emission. Respective ridges partition the internal space into at least three laser resonator cavities each sustaining a guided mode of the lasing light emission. The ridges extend in an alternative fashion from one and the other of the major surfaces of the body into the internal space and terminate short of the respectively other of the major surfaces to provide respective gaps. Each of these gaps connects two adjacent ones of the laser resonator cavities for phase-locking the guided modes in such cavities. However, the alternation of such gaps between the other and the one of the major surfaces provides discrimination against higher-order transverse modes.

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Enfield, CT, United States of America

Archie D Heath