Abstract
In the mid-infrared region (3 – 30 μm), there are only several kinds of commercial laser as shown in Fig. 1. A CO2 laser is very important because the CO2 laser emits high output energy and various pulse shapes at the wavelength region between 9.2 μm and 11.4 μm with a high absorptivity in many substances. The first CO2 laser was developed by C. K. N. Patel in 1964 and had a continuous output power of a few milliwatts (Patel, 1964). In 1968, the pulsed CO2 laser was developed by A. E. Hill and had a few joules (Hill, 1968). Nowadays, various types of CO2 lasers have been developed. The characteristics of CO2 laser pulses are determined by the discharge tube structure (a longitudinal excitation scheme like Fig. 2 (a) or a transversal excitation scheme like Fig. 2 (b)), the discharge types (DC discharge, RF discharge, or pulsed discharge) and the oscillation system (CW oscillation, Q-switched oscillation, or pulsed oscillation).
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