Efficient generation of near diffraction-limited beam-quality output from medium-scale copper vapor laser oscillators

Daniel Kapitan*, David W. Coutts, Colin E. Webb

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)
55 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Operation of copper vapor lasers (CVL's) using on-axis unstable resonators with very high magnifications M is characterized. A single medium-scale device (1-m-long, 25-mm-diameter bore) with M = 360 is capable of delivering 10 W of high-beam-quality (HBQ) output with a divergence of less than two times the diffraction limit at a wall-plug efficiency of 0.5%. The enhanced performance is achieved by tailoring the radial profiles of the initial amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) seed and gain, by means of varying the total neon buffer gas pressure, the partial hydrogen (H 2) content of the buffer gas, and power loading of the laser head. The degree of insulation of the plasma tube is found to be an important design criterium for optimizing the HBQ performance. These results indicate that efficient generation of HBQ output from medium-scale CVL's requires both a high degree of thermal insulation and operation at high buffer gas pressures with ambient H 2 concentrations of the order of 1%.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)419-426
Number of pages8
JournalIEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics
Volume34
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 1998

Bibliographical note

Copyright 1998 IEEE. Reprinted from IEEE journal of quantum electronics. This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Such permission of the IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of any of Macquarie University’s products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to [email protected]. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it.

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