Copper oxides obtained by CO2 laser irradiation of copper salts

Abstract

Various copper salts have been irradiated with the help of a continuous wave CO2 laser. In other experiments the same salts have been decomposed under a controlled heating rate, in a thermal balance, and copper oxide crystallites have been detected as the final product of both types of experiment. The measurements of crystallites performed with the help of x-ray diffraction exhibited differences between the two types of oxides: those obtained by laser irradiation as compared with the oxides obtained by thermal heating. The magnitude of this difference seems to depend on the laser quanta absorptivity of the initial salts. The results are consistent with those obtained previously on nickel oxides.