Development of NCLR's 1-kW XeCl laser

John C.M. Timmermans; Ramon M. Hofstra; Jacob Couperus; Richard Kleijhorst; Henk Prins; Gerard Oude Meijers; Hubert J. G. Van Heel

doi:10.1117/12.380905

3 April 2000 Development of NCLR's 1-kW XeCl laser

John C.M. Timmermans, Ramon M. Hofstra, Jacob Couperus, Richard Kleijhorst, Henk Prins, Gerard Oude Meijers, Hubert J. G. Van Heel

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 3889, Advanced High-Power Lasers; (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.380905
Event: Advanced High-Power Lasers and Applications, 1999, Osaka, Japan

Abstract

For several years NCLR is working on a 1 kW, 1 kHz XeCl laser. Improvement of the beam quality at high power levels enabled us to do large-scale application experiments and industrial applications become feasible. The base for the good beam quality is a homogeneous discharge. It starts with a smooth gas flow from a classical flow loop. The combination of X-ray pre-ionization and the sophisticated spiker-sustainer circuit guarantees a stable discharge with a long optical pulse (250 ns). Due to the gentle discharge only weak shock waves are formed that are damped within 800 microseconds. An unstable resonator gives a nearly diffraction limited beam. We are now finding a market for this laser. Hole drilling is one of the most promising applications. We can drill holes of 10 to 100 micrometer diameter at a very fast production rate of up to 1000 holes per second. The holes can be drilled in many different materials: metals like aluminum, titanium, steel and nickel alloys, but also plastics, ceramics, glass and composites. The good results encouraged us to design a commercial version of the laser.

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John C.M. Timmermans, Ramon M. Hofstra, Jacob Couperus, Richard Kleijhorst, Henk Prins, Gerard Oude Meijers, and Hubert J. G. Van Heel "Development of NCLR's 1-kW XeCl laser", Proc. SPIE 3889, Advanced High-Power Lasers, (3 April 2000); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.380905

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