Investigation of Laser Output Power Saturation in the He–Cu+ IR Hollow Cathode Discharge Laser by Experiments and Numerical Modeling

Abstract

Saturation in the laser output power at high electrical currents is experimentally observed for a He–Cu+ IR HCD laser. To investigate which mechanisms might be responsible for the laser power saturation, a modeling network is developed for a helium-argon-copper hollow cathode discharge (HCD), and is applied to the conditions for which saturation is observed. Typical calculation results, such as the potential distribution, the densities of the various plasma species, the sputtering flux and the ionization degree of copper, are presented as a function of electrical current. The calculated densities of electrons, Cu atoms and Cu+ ions, as well as the sputtering flux and the ionization degree of copper, increase with electrical current, whereas the He+ ion density is found to be constant. The laser output power itself cannot yet be predicted by the model, due to insufficient knowledge about the relevant populating and depopulating processes of the upper and lower laser levels and the corresponding cross sections. However, the model can make predictions on the production of the upper laser level (by asymmetric charge transfer between Cu atoms and He+ ions). The latter is found to increase less rapidly with current at higher values of the electrical current, which is attributed to the rise in gas temperature at higher electrical currents, and it suggests a certain degree of saturation in the laser output power. However, full saturation in the production rate of the upper laser level was not obtained with our calculations. Hence, the observed laser power saturation at high currents is probably also due to (i) either increasing depopulation of the upper laser level, or (ii) increasing population of the lower laser level, resulting in a drop in the population inversion.