High-power room-temperature operating cw CO laser excited by microwave discharge

X. Luo; Johannes Heinrich Schaefer; Juergen Uhlenbusch

doi:10.1117/12.204891

31 March 1995 High-power room-temperature operating cw CO laser excited by microwave discharge

X. Luo, Johannes Heinrich Schaefer, Juergen Uhlenbusch

Proceedings Volume 2502, Gas Flow and Chemical Lasers: Tenth International Symposium; (1995) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.204891
Event: Gas Flow and Chemical Lasers: Tenth International Symposium, 1994, Friedrichshafen, Germany

Abstract

In this contribution we present a high power cw CO laser operating at room temperature. A scheme of forced convective cooling by fast axial gas flow combined with microwave discharge excitation has been developed. A T-shaped laser tube made of Pyrex glass with 5.1 cm i.d. is located in a microwave resonator of 12.5 cm (W) X 5.6 cm (H) X 30 cm (L) in dimension. The microwave at 2.45 GHz of up to 6 kW power generated by a magnetron is coupled into the resonator using the R26 waveguide technique. The laser gas flows through the T-shaped laser tube and is circulated by a rootspump in a closed loop. Two water cooled heat exchangers cool away the waste heat and the compression heat. The optical cavity consists of a total reflecting gold coated copper mirror and an output coupling flat from CaF₂ with 10% transmission. A maximum output power of 440 watts (or 1.4 kW/m) has been obtained from this laser system with a maximum efficiency of 8%. The laser characteristics have been studied. It is found that both Xe and O₂ are important for the high power CO laser operation at room temperature. The laser is characterized by the modular construction of the discharging section, so that it can be easily extended to a multimodular system to increase the laser output power.

Citation Download Citation

X. Luo, Johannes Heinrich Schaefer, and Juergen Uhlenbusch "High-power room-temperature operating cw CO laser excited by microwave discharge", Proc. SPIE 2502, Gas Flow and Chemical Lasers: Tenth International Symposium, (31 March 1995); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.204891

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