Dependence of the lasing power of CO-laser on certain parameters at room temperature

Abstract

by two external mirrors with gold coating: one is a fiat mirror with an aperture having a diameter of 3 mm, while the other is a spherical mirror with a radius of curvature equal to 10 m. The length of the resonator is 150 cm. The laser tube consisting of molybdenum glass having a length of 120 cm and an inside diameter of 14 mm was cooled with tap water. The lengths of the cooled section and the discharge gap were 96 and 100 cm, respectively. The electrical power supply was achieved with a direct current of 5 to 30 mA at a tube voltage of 5 to 15 kV. The CaF 2 windows were glued directly to the end-faces of the gas-discharge tube which had been ground at the Brewster angle. As was noted in [2], the operation of a CO-laser, especially at room temperature and in the field regime, is adversely affected by the presence of water vapor in the discharge. We did not achieve lasing without special drying of the gas mixture. Therefore in all experiments the mixture was dried by passing it through CaC12 and then through P205. The electrodes of the gas-discharge tube were fabricated in the form of seamless nickel covers. The gas mixture, which was made up in advance in a covered vessel, was pumped through the tube at a velocity which varied from 0.65 to 59 m/sec. The procedure described in [6] was used to measure the flow velocity. Measurement of the output power of the laser was carried out by means of a KIM-1 calorimeter within 0.2 W.