Metal and metal halide vapor lasers: new opportunities

The influence of minor H-2 and HBr additives on the generation characteristics of some copper bromide vapor lasers is experimentally investigated. It is demonstrated that at optimal concentrations of both admixtures, the average generation power increases by five times for lasers with small active element diameters, and by two times for lasers with major diameters. For the maintenance of an adjusted concentration of the admixture, the original construction of the HBr generator is developed, which in the reversible regime removes not only the HBr surplus from active volume of the laser, but also at least some of harmful products of the working laser. The obtained results are applied to the development of a sealed-off self-heating copper bromide vapor laser with an integral HBr generator, operating in the automatic regime. (c) 2005 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.