Beam reformatting of one- and two-dimensional arrays of CO/sub 2/ waveguide lasers

The conversion of a linear to rectangular array beam is demonstrated for multi-element RF excited CO/sub 2/ waveguide lasers using the two-mirror beam shaping technique introduced by Clarkson and Hanna. High efficiency conversion of a one-dimensional array into a rectangular array format has been achieved with the reformatting mirrors in the near-field and with no auxiliary optical elements. The brightness of a 2-kW 64-element two dimensional array has been enhanced by a factor of 2 using a modified version of the reformatting technique to improve the fill factor of the array beam.