Control of an average output power of a CuBr laser

Abstract

We have studied the pump parameters of a CuBr laser (pulse repetition rate of 14 kHz) with an independent heating of the active medium and an additional excitation source, providing an operational control of the radiation parameters in a given time interval. We have fabricated an experimental setup that makes it possible to change the average output power by applying a control pulse which is ahead of the main pulse by 0.12 — 20 μs. It is shown that toensure the effective control of the laser power, the voltage amplitude of the additional excitation pulse should be within 12 % — 28 % of the main pulse amplitude. In this case, the proposed control regime allows a 2.5-fold decrease in the time delay between the control and main excitation pulses due to a higher energy of the additional pulse compared to self-heating regime of the laser operation.