Optical resonator for high-power transverse flow CO 2 lasers (original) (raw)
Related papers
Pramana-journal of Physics, 2003
Transverse flow transversely excited (TFTE) CO 2 lasers are easily scalable to multikilowatt level. The laser power can be scaled up by increasing the volumetric gas flow and discharge volume. It was observed in a TFTE CW CO 2 laser having single row of pins as an anode and tubular cathode that the laser power was not increasing when the discharge volume and the gas volumetric flow were increased by increasing the electrode separation keeping the gas flow velocity constant. The discharge voltage too remained almost constant with the change of electrode separation at the same gas flow velocity. This necessitated revision of the scaling laws for designing this type of high power CO 2 laser. Experimental results of laser performance for different electrode separations are discussed and the modifications in the scaling laws are presented.
Design, Construction and Characterization of Sealed Tube Medium Power CO2 Laser System
A low-cost medium power carbon dioxide (CO2) laser system is designed, constructed, and characterized to produce coherent, monochromatic laser radiation in the Infrared region. The laser cavity is simulated and designed by using ZEMAX optic studio. A switch-mode high tension pump source is designed and constructed using a flyback transformer and simulated using NI Multisim to study the voltage behavior at different node points. A prototype cooling system/chiller is designed and built using the Thermo-Electric Coolers (TEC) to remove the excess heat produced during laser action. Various parameters, like pumping mechanism, chiller stability, efficiency, output power, and current at different applied voltages, are studied. The chiller efficiency at different output powers of the laser is analyzed, which clearly shows that the chiller's cooling rate is good enough to compensate for the heat generated by the laser system. The center wavelength of the carbon dioxide laser is 10.6μm wi...
Design, Construction and Characterization of Sealed Tube Medium Power CO<sub>2</sub> Laser System
2022
A low-cost medium power carbon dioxide (CO2) laser system is designed, constructed, and characterized to produce coherent, monochromatic laser radiation in the Infrared region. The laser cavity is simulated and designed by using ZEMAX optic studio. A switch-mode high tension pump source is designed and constructed using a flyback transformer and simulated using NI Multisim to study the voltage behavior at different node points. A prototype cooling system/chiller is designed and built using the Thermo-Electric Coolers (TEC) to remove the excess heat produced during laser action. Various parameters, like pumping mechanism, chiller stability, efficiency, output power, and current at different applied voltages, are studied. The chiller efficiency at different output powers of the laser is analyzed, which clearly shows that the chiller's cooling rate is good enough to compensate for the heat generated by the laser system. The center wavelength of the carbon dioxide laser is 10.6μm with FWHM of 1.2nm simulated in the ZEMAX optic studio. The output beam penetration through salt rock (NaCl), wood, and acrylic sheet at various output powers is analyzed to measure the penetration depth rate of the CO2 laser.
High-power transverse flow CW CO2 laser for material processing applications
Optics & Laser Technology, 2005
A transverse flow transversely excited (TFTE) CW CO 2 with a maximum output power about 15 kW has been developed. This is excited by pulser sustained DC discharge applied between a pair of multi-pins anodes and a common tubular cathode. Though the laser power in convective cooled CO 2 laser scales proportionally with the volumetric gas flow, it did not increase in this laser when the volumetric gas flow was increased by increasing the electrode separation keeping the flow velocity constant. The discharge voltage too remained almost unchanged with increase of the electrode separation. These observations are explained considering the electrical discharge being controlled by ionization instability. Laser materials processing applications often demand programming facilities for laser power modulation. A four-stage cascaded multilevel DC-DC converter-based high-frequency switch mode power supply has been developed to modulate the output power of the laser. Laser was operated up to 15 kW output power in four different modes viz. continuous wave mode, pulse periodic mode, single shot mode and processing velocity-dependent power mode with 1:2 kHz modulation bandwidth. We describe briefly the laser system, the SMPS, and the temporal behavior of laser beam.
High-power multibeam CO2 laser for industrial applications
Optics & Laser Technology, 2003
Multibeam CO2 lasers consist of a large number of closely packed parallel glass discharge tubes, all sharing a common plane parallel resonator. This paper describes construction and operation of a CW multibeam CO2 laser consisting 20 discharge tubes and cooled length of 1500 mm, delivering 1 kW power. A high-frequency pulser is used for producing preionization in all discharge sections for initiating the main DC discharge simultaneously in all discharge tubes. Plane parallel resonator consists of a plane ZnSe mirror of 90 mm diameter having 60% re ectivity and a gold-coated copper mirror of same diameter. This laser operates in waveguide regime and laser power is not critically sensitive to mirror misalignment.
Toric unstable CO_2 laser resonator: an experimental study
Applied Optics, 1992
The output characteristics of a toric unstable resonator fitted to a multichannel stripline excitation system are presented. The resonator is shown to possess the usual advantages of a conventional unstable resonator plus the ability to modify the profile of the output beam by a simple change in the coupling aperture. Laser output parameters have been studied as a function of coupling fraction, magnification, and internal loss factors. Variations in the focal spot size as a function of the coupling aperture as well as resonator alignment sensitivity and polarization properties have been investigated.
High-efficiency CO2 waveguide laser
Optics Communications, 1986
The design and performance of a new cw radio-frequency excited sealed off CO 2 laser with self-focusing parallel-ptatc waveguide are exposed. As a result of low propagation losses in such a guide and the easier gas exchange between the reservoir and the excited mixture throughout the open sides of the waveguide, an efficiency of up to 18% has been achieved. Good agreement is found between the analysis of the emitted shape mode and the experimental results.