Programmable multifunction laser

Claim 1

A programmable multi-format modulated laser, comprising: a main resonant cavity including a gain cell positioned along an optical axis, a source of excitation coupled to said cell, a gaseous lasing medium within said gain cell and a pair of windows at opposite ends, said gain cell constrained to emit only linearly polarized optical flux along one direction, intracavity modulation coupling means axially aligned with said main cavity including a birefringent crystal modulator with electrodes thereon for application thereto of modulation voltages and a polarization coupler set at the Brewster angle to the optical axis to couple out of said laser optical flux polarized orthogonally to that emitted by said gain cell, a plurality of mirrors including first and second highly reflective mirrors positioned at respective opposite ends of said main cavity and intracavity coupling means and a third low reflectivity mirror between said main resonant cavity and intracavity means, and a programmable modulation voltage source means connected to said modulator electrodes, said voltage source means including a plurality of sources of different modulation voltage waveforms, and switching means for selectively applying one of said plurality of sources to said modulator crystal for a predetermined time interval.