Application of deformable mirrors in industrial CO2 lasers.: II.: Intracavity power control and repetitively pulsed modulation of output radiation

Industrial CO2 lasers of various types with stable cavities, which contain deformable mirrors with a controllable curvature of the reflecting surface, are studied experimentally. Stable and reproducible control of the output power of industrial CO2 lasers is achieved in both single-mode and multimode regimes until the complete lasing quenching. Stable repetitively pulsed lasing regimes with a pulse repetition rate varied from a few to several hundred hertz are obtained in cw CO2 lasers. The shapes of the output laser pulses and the dependence of the mean output power on the frequency-time parameters of the control voltage applied to the intracavity deformable mirror are studied.