Phase conjugation in a high-power E-beam-sustained CO2 laser

The experimental demonstration of phase conjugation technique as applied to aberration correction in a high-power gas-flow CO2 laser is reported. A four-wave mixing in 34SF6 was used to obtain high efficient phase conjugation of repetition rate electron- beam-sustained CO2 laser radiation. For the first time, the nearly diffraction-limited performance of the double-pass CO2 amplifier with the phase-conjugate mirror for the output energy of about 1.2 KJ and average power of 40 KW is demonstrated.