Theoretical and experimental study on polarization characteristics of corner-cube folded resonator

Jones matrix of cube corner prism is deduced by means of ray tracing, and polarization model of cube corner prism is founded. The influence on polarization of incident polarized light by cube corner prism is analyzed. It is found that there exists special polarization azimuth at an incidence zone of cube corner prism, at which the incident linearly polarized light is still linearly polarized after being reflected by cube corner prism. A laser resonator with linearly polarized light is designed using this characteristic, thus the electric-optical Q-switch can be used in it. The beam quality of output laser is unaffected by the vertex and edge of cube corner prism. A laser developed based on the resonator can output energy above 300 mJ at 10 Hz, and the beam quality factor is about 2.