Longitudinally excited CO₂laser with tail-free short pulse

Abstract

We developed a longitudinally excited CO 2 laser with a tail-free short laser pulse. In a discharge tube, two structures were researched. One is a shingle scheme that is constituted of a 45 cm-long discharge tube. Another is a tandem that is constituted of two 30 cm-long discharge tubes connected with an intermediate electrode were used. In gas media, CO 2 -rich mixture (CO 2 : N 2 = 20: 1) was used to reduce a laser pulse tail. The laser system did not require expensive and scarce helium. A fast discharge (<1 μs) in a low gas pressure (<1.8 kPa) produced a tail-free laser pulse with the pulse width of about 100 ns. The single scheme produced an output energy of 4.7 mJ by a charging voltage of -36.3 kV, and the tandem scheme produced an output energy of 9.3 mJ by a charging voltage of -25.2 kV. The tandem scheme produced higher spike pulse by lower voltage than the single scheme. Therefore, the tandem scheme will be effective in longitudinally excited CO 2 lasers with simple and compact designs.

Anomalous enhancement of drilling rate in carbon fiber reinforced plastic using azimuthally polarized CO2laser

“…Metallic electrodes are attached to each end of the tube to provide longitudinal discharge along the tube. The laser body is described in further detail in our previous work [16,17].…”