Switch-less operation of a TEA CO2 laser with extended electrodes

Longitudinally Excited CO2 Laser with Short Laser Pulse like TEA CO2 Laser

“…These results show that the longitudinally excited CO 2 laser device is able to perform processing like TEA and Q-switched CO 2 lasers. Moreover, it should be possible to develop a longitudinally excited CO 2 laser without a pulse tail, in other words, a laser emitting a pulse composed entirely of a short spike pulse, by suitable adjustment of the circuit parameters (rapid discharge) and by the use of pure CO 2 gas (to eliminate the long nitrogen tail) [4,5].…”

“…[3]). A TEA-CO 2 laser, on the other hand, emits laser pulses with high output energy and a short pulse width (typically, a spike pulse with a pulse width of about 100 ns and a pulse tail of several microseconds) [4][5][6][7][8]. However, a TEA-CO 2 laser is not suitable for high-repetition operation because of the problem of poor discharge uniformity due to residual charge in the laser tube.…”

Simple Short-Pulse CO2 Laser Excited by Longitudinal Discharge without High-Voltage Switch

“…The laser oscillation takes place 7.5 μs after the start of discharge. The laser pulse has a sharp spike pulse, like that from TEA and Q-switched CO 2 lasers [3,4,[7][8][9][10].…”

“…The laser produced a short laser pulse (e.g., a spike pulse width of 96.3 ns and a pulse tail length of 17.2 μs with the 100 Ω system in Ref. [16]) similar to that from TEA-CO 2 lasers (typically, a spike pulse with a pulse width of about 100 ns and a pulse tail of several microseconds [7][8][9][10]) and Q-switched CO 2 lasers (typically, a spike pulse with a pulse width of 0.2-3 μs and a pulse tail of about 100 μs [3,4]). However, the performance of a high-voltage switch such as a spark gap, thyratron, etc (a spark gap in the previously reported system) directly influences the laser-device performance in terms of repetition rate, stability, cost, size, and maintenance-frequency.…”

“…CO 2 lasers with a wide variety of excitation schemes have been developed, such as DC discharge [2][3][4], RF discharge [5,6], transverse discharge [7][8][9][10], and longitudinal discharge [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”