Diffractive resonators for solid-state lasers

Summary form only given. Diffractive optics has been shown to be capable of producing high quality solid state laser mirrors and lenses with arbitrary surface figures. In the present experiment, we show that using a curved output mirror has several advantages. First, the cavity can be shortened substantially while still maintaining good discrimination against higher-order modes. Second, the total phase excursion can often be contained within 2 Π radians, eliminating the phase discontinuity present in a diffractive structure