100 W Kinetically enhanced copper, vapor laser at 10 kHz repetition-rate, high (∼1.5%) efficiency with low (∼1.6.kW/1) specific input power and performance of new resonator configurations

It is established here that kinetically enhanced copper vapor lasers (KE-CVLs) based on large-bore discharge tubes can provide high (>1.4%) efficiency at similar to 9-10 kHz, rep-rate with very low (<2 kW/1) specific input power. Comparative performance of various large-bore kinetically enhanced copper vapor lasers in the range 45-70 mm is presented for most suitable discharge tube. Maximum output power of similar to 100 W was achieved with efficiency of about 1.55% at 10 kHz rep-rate from the 60 mm bore KE-CVL. The pulse to pulse efficiency of the KE-CVL was similar to 2%, tube efficiency similar to 2.1%, and laser pulse energy was about similar to 10 mJ. These results show significant advancement in the laser system as an elemental high temperature CVL due to volumetric scaling and KE-effects combined with very low specific input power of similar to 1.65 kW/l as compared to 8-9 kW/l normally required in other kinetically enhanced copper vapor lasers to generate similar to 100 W output power. Performance of the KE-&L with 3 new cavity configurations namely, (1) CAT-EYE resonator (2) hybrid resonator, and (3) modified diffraction coupled resonator with dot mirrors are presented for the first here. CAT-EYE resonator was demonstrated to achieve high misalignment tolerance without significant loss of power. A typical drift in power of similar to 5% was observed with misalignment responsible for 40% decline in-power in case of standard plane-plane cavity. Effect of resonator misalignment on amplifier output drift was also investigated using CAT-EYE resonator in oscillator-amplifier configuration. in case of using stable-unstable hybrid resonator, high magnification of M similar to 1500 was realized resulting in extremely low divergence (similar to 0.08 mrad) beam with modest (similar to 20%) loss in average power. In case of modified DCR cavity, record power of about 48 W was achieved with beam divergence of about 0.1 mrad on using intra-cavity 2 x 2 array of 4 dot mirrors. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.