Study on the kinetic mechanisms of copper vapor lasers with hydrogen-neon admixtures

Abstract

The kinetic mechanisms of copper vapor lasers with hydrogen-neon admixtures are studied in detail with a computational model. (i) The copper particle density increases as the wall temperature rises after adding hydrogen into neon buffer gas, and de-population of the laser lower levels is enhanced during the interpulse period owing to a larger thermal diffusion loss from the tube center to the wall. (ii) The power dissipated by the thyratron or current through it decreases with increasing frequency of the momentum-transfer collision of electrons, i.e. the input power into the laser tube increases. On the other hand, the plasma electron temperature and electron density decrease as the electron energy is depleted through the impact excitation of the vibration levels of hydrogen, which makes the population of the laser upper levels restrained.