High-power copper vapor laser development

Nobutada Aoki; Hironobu Kimura; Chikara Konagai; Shimpey Shirayama; Tatsuo Miyazawa; Tomoyuki Takahashi

doi:10.1117/12.43628

1 May 1991 High-power copper vapor laser development

Nobutada Aoki, Hironobu Kimura, Chikara Konagai, Shimpey Shirayama, Tatsuo Miyazawa, Tomoyuki Takahashi

Proceedings Volume 1412, Gas and Metal Vapor Lasers and Applications; (1991) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.43628
Event: Optics, Electro-Optics, and Laser Applications in Science and Engineering, 1991, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Abstract

Copper vapor laser (CVL) devices of 60 mm bore have been developed for atomic vapor laser isotope separation, and recently an average power per device of over 200W (211W maximum) has been achieved by expanding the discharge length to 3000 mm. In order to further improve the power output by increasing the discharge volume, it is important to supply discharge energy efficiently to the laser tube and to maintain the optimum copper vapor density in the larger volume. Now a CVL discharge circuit has been designed using a CVL discharge simulation code able to calculate time-dependent plasma resistance. In addition, a thermal insulation structure that effectively maximizes the laser gain volume has been designed using a thermal simulation code that takes thermal conduction and emission loss from the tube ends into account. This code yields results which show good agreement with experimental data. The results demonstrate that codes which simulate electrical and thermal characteristics are effective tools in the design of high-power CVL devices. In this paper, the methods of designing CVL electrical circuits and laser head structures using CVL simulation codes are reported, and some resulting high-power devices are discussed.

Citation Download Citation

Nobutada Aoki, Hironobu Kimura, Chikara Konagai, Shimpey Shirayama, Tatsuo Miyazawa, and Tomoyuki Takahashi "High-power copper vapor laser development", Proc. SPIE 1412, Gas and Metal Vapor Lasers and Applications, (1 May 1991); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.43628

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