A compact, sealed, single mode TEA CO2 laser

Frequency characteristics of a miniature transversely excited CO2 laser

“…At a pressure of 54 kPa the FWHM of the gain curve will be approximately 1.9 GHz. This combined with a measured gain coefficient of 2% per centimetre (17) and an output coupler of 80% reflectivity proved sufficient to allow the desired single-longitudinal-mode operation. Single-mode operation was verified by observing the laser output with a photon-drag detector and transient digitizer combination (risetime < 1 ns).…”

“…The laser system under study has been described previously (17), however, a few details will be given. The laser is basically a Laflamme type double discharge system (18) that has proven to operate successfully in sealed as well as high-repetition-rate configurations.…”

“…The electrical excitation was provided by means of sequentially discharging the preionizing trigger-bar followed by the main-discharge, with the appropriate synchronization. The operation of the circuit has already been discussed (16,17).…”

Electro-optic frequency shifts in a Q-switched CO2laser

“…Frequency-stable pulsed CO2 lasers are currently of interest for several applications, including long-range heterodyne radar applications, air turbulence measurements, and optical pumping of far infrared lasers. Several devices have been reported in the literature, ranging from high peak power, low repetition rate TEA lasers (Jordan et al 1983, Rutt 1983, Hollins and Jordan 1982, Pace and Lacombe 1978 to Q-switched and cavity-dumped lasers (Siemsen 1981, Marcus andCarter 1979) which use a cw discharge and offer higher repetition rate at lower peak power. Intrapulse frequency variations have been measured in several devices (see, for example, Willetts and Harris 1982) and it has been shown that pulsed discharge lasers necessarily exhibit a predictable and reproducible chirp due to several medium perturbation effects.…”

Scaling laws for the mode purity of simple TEA CO2lasers

“…Several authors have reported devices based upon these principles. Pace and Lacombe (1978) and Lachambre et a1 (1979) have reported devices producing up to 400 kW of peak power with mode rejection of up to 40 dB. The absolute frequency stability of these devices can easily fulfil the requirements of heterodyne range-finding systems, and heterodyne detection of the short output pulses has been successfully shown to offer a significant sensitivity advantage over direct detection (Jordan et a1 1981, Hollins et a1 1982.…”