Investigation of the effects of bromine and hydrogen bromide additives on copper vapour laser performance

We report on a detailed study of the effects of bromine and hydrogen bromide buffer-gas additive on the electrical and lasing characteristics of a conventional, high-temperature copper vapour laser. At standard buffer gas flow rates HBrNe mixtures produced relatively small improvements in output po...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics communications 1997-02, Vol.135 (1), p.164-170
Main Authors: Withford, M.J, Brown, D.J.W, Carman, R.J, Piper, J.A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Buffer gas additives
Copper vapour laser
Flow-rate
HBr
Hydrogen
Output power
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Summary:We report on a detailed study of the effects of bromine and hydrogen bromide buffer-gas additive on the electrical and lasing characteristics of a conventional, high-temperature copper vapour laser. At standard buffer gas flow rates HBrNe mixtures produced relatively small improvements in output power, however, larger increases in output power were observed at elevated HBrNe flow rates. Added HBr also significantly modifies the spatio-temporal characteristics of laser output, increasing the pulse duration by a factor of 2 while also improving the radial intensity profile. This result has important implications for improving the extraction of high beam quality output from devices employing high magnification unstable resonators.
ISSN:0030-4018
1873-0310
DOI:10.1016/S0030-4018(96)00665-7