Improved ultraviolet second-harmonic generation at elevated repetition rates from a medium-scale copper-vapor laser

Author

Withford, Michael J. ; Brown, Daniel J.W.

Author_Institution

Centre for Lasers & Applications, Macquarie Univ., Sydney, NSW, Australia

Volume

1

Issue

3

fYear

1995

fDate

9/1/1995 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

779

Lastpage

783

Abstract

We report significant improvements in ultraviolet (UV) power generation at elevated pulse-repetition frequencies (10⩾kHz) from a frequency-doubled copper-vapor laser (CVL), employing a Ne-H₂ buffer gas. In particular, UV powers of 1.3 W and 0.6 W at 255 nm (SHG green) were generated at 10 kHz and 20 kHz, respectively, when using H ₂ additive in a medium scale (nominally 20 W) CVL oscillator. These results represent improvements of 6.5× and ~100×, respectively, over the UV powers obtained for pure neon-buffer gas. The enhanced UV powers are directly related to the improvement in high-beam quality extraction from the CVL due to the beneficial effects of the H ₂ add-gas on CVL gain characteristics

Keywords

copper; gas lasers; laser beams; optical harmonic generation; 0.6 W; 1.3 W; 10 kHz; 20 W; 20 kHz; 255 nm; Cu; Cu-vapor laser; H₂; H₂ additive; Ne-H₂; Ne-H₂ buffer gas; SHG green; UV powers; elevated repetition rates; enhanced UV powers; frequency-doubled laser; gain characteristics; high-beam quality extraction; power generation; ultraviolet second-harmonic generation; Additives; Diffraction; Frequency; Gas lasers; Laser beams; Micromachining; Optical pulse generation; Power generation; Power lasers; Spontaneous emission;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1077-260X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/2944.473659

Filename

473659