Rami Arieli: "The Laser Adventure" Chapter 7 Section 2, page 20
Pinhole limit Transverse Modes

Figure 7.13 describes the first 3 transverse laser modes that were described in figure 4.8.


Figure 7.13: Limiting pinhole inside the laser cavity.

The pinhole inside the laser cavity cause high losses for the higher modes, thus limiting the laser operation to single mode.

Increasing Fresnel number means lower losses, but increasing the chance for higher laser modes