A new kind of radio-frequency-excited diffusively cooled gain slab waveguide array CO2 laser is presented. In this type of laser, grooves are engraved on the top electrode to form a group of parallel subelectrodes that can produce the periodic gain distribution along the transverse direction of the waveguide. A copper feedback mirror with parallel grooves in the surface is used. By using this type of laser structure, a stable far-field intensity distribution with a spatially suppressed single peak is obtained.
In this paper, we have investigated the discharge transverse uniformity of an RF excited diffusively cooled all-metal slab waveguide CO2 laser, the discharge characteristic of an RF excited diffusively cooled all-metal slab waveguide CO2 laser was reported, At different input power, the discharge plasma between all metal slab waveguide were clearly recorded with Nikon camera. The striations were distinctly observed on the discharge photographs, the two bright regions on the pictures is proportional to the visible emission intensity.
In this paper, we have presented a new type of RF excited diffusively cooled all-metal slab waveguide CO2 laser. In this laser structure, the four side walls of the slab waveguide are all made of aluminum alloy instead of ceramic and metal sandwich waveguide structure in the past technique. In our approach, a low cost of slab waveguide CO2 laser can be achieved. By using the technique in this paper, over 100 watts of laser power has been achieved from a laser head with dimension of 150mm height, 150mm width and 450mm length, which has the slab waveguide gas discharge region of 2mm height, 20mm width and 386mm length. The electro-optic conversion efficiency is over 12%. In our experiment, a gas mixture of CO2: N2: He: Xe =1: 1: 3: 0.26 has been employed, and the gas pressure is in the range from 6.5 Kpa to 13.5 Kpa. The frequency of the RF power is 91.5 MHz, and the RF power is in the range from 500watts to 1000watts.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.