A compact formula for the coupling efficiency associated with mirrors in waveguide lasers

This paper presents a simple theory based on the diffraction integral approach for calculating the coupling efficiency in waveguide lasers which employ plane or spherical mirrors. The results obtained differ only slightly from a full rigorous approach, due to the fact that only less than one percent of the beam energy lies outside the waveguide aperture. The infinite aperture approximation employed here leads to an explicit compact formula for the coupling efficiency, whereas exact calculations lead to expressions requiring numerical integration for their evaluation.