Design and Construction of a Three-Color Gold–Copper-Vapor Laser and the Output-Power Dependence on the Frequency and Buffer-gas Pressure

Abstract

We design and construct a three-color gold–copper-vapor laser emitting green (510.6 nm), yellow (578.2 nm), and red (627.8 nm) light. The maximum measured total average output power is 12 W under sealed-off conditions. We divide the active medium into three zones (two at both ends for copper and the central zone for gold) in order to vaporize both gold and copper simultaneously. For this purpose, we use a single type of thermal insulator to change the temperature along the medium by varying its thickness, which is the main point in our design. In addition, we carry out some experiments to distinguish the dependence of the output power on the frequency and buffer-gas pressure; the measured ratio of these three wavelengths, green : yellow: red, is 22 : 10 : 7.