A simple digital control system with field-programmable gate array for stabilization of CO2 laser output

A simple digital control system was designed to stabilize CO2 laser based on digital signal processing with the Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) controlling chip and Very-High-Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language program. In this system, the control parameters were easily determined by software real-time control, and the control circuit was also designed compactly. In addition, the theoretical analysis on the stabilization of CO2 laser output characteristics was presented based on the photoacoustic effect, and the corresponding experiments on the stabilization of CO2 laser output characteristics were further performed. The results show that the output power of CO2 laser is stabilized at the peak with a relative power stability of 2.71%. Furthermore, the frequency of CO2 laser 9P(36) line is stabilized at the center of the laser gain curve with a relative stability of (1.57 +/- 0.37) x 10(-8). This system has a potential of further improvements by optimizing the algorithm and choosing higher-speed signal processor. Published by AIP Publishing.