CW 20 kW SAGE CO[sub 2] laser for industrial use. [Silent-discharge Assisted Glow discharge Excitation]
- Advanced Material-Processing and Machining Technology Research Association, Osaka (Japan)
- Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Nagoya (Japan)
- Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Hyogo (Japan). Manufacturing Development Lab.
- Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Hyogo (Japan). Central Research Lab.
- Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Hyogo (Japan). Industrial Electronics and Systems Lab.
A new type of high-power CW CO[sub 2] laser with power output of more than 20 kW is described. The laser consists of a discharge excitation system named SAGE (Silent-discharge (SD) Assisted Glow discharge Excitation) and a ZnSe or a KCl transmissive window to extract high quality beams with axisymmetric intensity profile from a confocal positive-branch unstable resonator. The SAGE is effective to form a uniformly distributed and stable discharge in a large-volume and high-pressure gas excitation medium. Together with appropriate high-pressure gas conditions leading to low dissociation rate of CO[sub 2] and with using the properly selected zeolite to adsorb water vapor in the laser chamber, the transmissive windows have enabled gas-sealed operations. Prior to the design of the 20-kW SAGE laser, small-scaled experiments of the SAGE and stress analyses of the window were studied. The structure of the 20-kW SAGE laser and its performance characteristics such as SD power, magnification factor of the unstable resonator and gas pressure dependences of the power output, long-term gas-sealed operation, and beam quality are described in detail. The maximum CW power of 26.5 kW with an efficiency of 16.5 percent is attained through the ZnSe window, and a 20.3 kW power output is extracted through the KCl window. A long-term gas-sealed operation at a CW power level of 20 kW is demonstrated during a period of 65 hours.
- OSTI ID:
- 7207311
- Journal Information:
- IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers); (United States), Vol. 29:12; ISSN 0018-9197
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
High power gas laser research. Final report, 1 Jul 1965-30 Jun 1966
Multibeam cw gas-discharge CO/sub 2/ laser Iglan-3