This article is cited in 3 papers

Stability of the emission from fast-flow gas discharge industrial CO₂ lasers (review)

V. S. Golubev, F. V. Lebedev


Abstract: An analysis is made of the possible physical and technical reasons for fluctuations of the power and spatial emission characteristics of fast-flow gas discharge industrial CO₂ lasers caused by instabilities of the properties of the active medium and of the resonator, and by the influence on the resonator operation of processes occurring on and near a target irradiated with the laser. It is shown that the amplitude of the power fluctuations can reach 100%, while the instability of the angular distribution can exceed the diffraction-limited beam divergence. The frequency spectrum of the variation in the laser emission parameters lies in the range 10^–3 to 10⁶ Hz. Fluctuations having such amplitude and frequency characteristics can strongly influence the stability of an industrial process during laser processing of materials, and they must therefore be taken into account when selecting the laser equipment and its operating regimes.

UDC: 621.373.826.038.823

PACS: 42.55.Lt, 42.60.By, 42.60.Jf, 42.60.Lh, 42.60.Da, 42.60.Mi

Received: 06.03.1984

 English version: Soviet Journal of Quantum Electronics, 1985, 15:4, 437–442

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