Output beam drift and deformation in high-power COIL

Abstract

During the operation of a chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) with an unstable resonator of a large Fresnel number, as the output power increases, an instability of the output laser beam will appear, behaving mainly as far-field beam spot drift and deformation. In order to interpret this phenomenon, thermal expansion analysis on the scraper with finite element analysis method and a simulation of the output beam mode of this kind of laser by the method of Fast Fourier Transform were developed. From the experimental measurement and the calculation, we proposed that the presence of the nonuniform temperature distribution of scraper causes the front surface of the scraper to tilt and bulge due to thermal expansion. As the output power is increasing, all the mirror surfaces, especially the scraper's, will absorb more and more heat, causing thermal expansion of the mirror front surface to occur more seriously, thus resulting in the tilting and deformation of the far-field beam spot. The initial misalignment of the direction is also an important factor leading to the far-field beam spot drift and deformation.