Optimisation of H2-HCl-Ne buffer gas mixtures used in kinetically enhanced copper vapour lasers

Abstract

Kinetically enhanced copper vapour lasers (KE-CVLs) have performance characteristics far exceeding those of conventional (elemental copper) devices [1,2]. For example, a 38mm diameter CVL normally producing only 65W when employing H2-Ne buffer gas mixtures produces >150W when kinetically enhanced. In addition, to the greatly increased repetition rate scaling characteristics of KE-CVLs, spatio-temporal gain characteristics are much more favourable for the extraction of high beam quality output from these devices.