The wavefront curvature of an optically pumped waveguide laser

Summary A procedure for computing the shape of the wavefronts in waveguide lasers with inhomogeneous gain has been found. Its application to an optically pumped FIR laser shows that the inhomogeneous pump beam intensity will lead to sizeable effects in the output beam geometry.The same treatment is possible for other types of waveguide lasers, too. It is probable that in most cases the first order approximation is satisfactory. If waveguide losses have to be included, this can easily be accounted for by replacing G in equation (4) by (G-).