Experimental research of gasdynamic-cooled discharge CO 2 laser

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper has reported the configuration and output characteristics of gasdynamic cooled discharge CO2 laser. In the samecondition, the pre-mixed gasdynaniic cooled discharge laser's electro-optic transfer efficiency is up to 11. 15%, and there areno obvious difference in its output power and electro-optic transfer efficiency compared with the all-closed laser whichneeds helium or argon. The designed a downstream-mixed laser can obtain injecting power rate which is greater than1300W/gsec' and 1%cm' small signal gain coefficient. When the total injecting power is 1 .8KW, the power of the outputnear basic mode laser is 108W.Keywords: CO2 Laser, gas mixed, gasdynamic-cooled, output characteristic 1. INTRODUCTION In recent years, there have been considerable developments in CO2 lasers, now high power discharge CO2 lasers have beenused widely for they have obvious advantages in lots of aspects such as electro-optic transfer efficiency , output power.But in order to reduce the gas consumption and remove the laser's surplus heat, we have to adopt the totally-enclosedworking style and install fan driver and heat exchanger inside the laser. Conseuently, the lasefs total siructure is rathercomplex and the cubage is quite bigness. Further more, limited by the flux of fan drive and the capacity of heat exchanger,the laser's maximum output power is no more than myriawatt.The princinple of gasdynainic-cooled technology is that by using aerodynamics methods the laser active medium effectivecooling and quickly flowing can be made a reality and thus highly efficient laser can be produced. Different from thecommon thscharge CO2 laser's working principle, gasdynaniic-cooled laser can get cheaper gas (such as nitrogen and C02)as active medium, so it can work on the opening style, and its output power can reach million watt. This is due to that