TUNABILITY OF SEALED-OFF CO2-LASERS

Tunability of sealed-off CO//2 lasers is achieved either by piezoelectrically tuning one of the laser mirrors, when only several high gain vibrational-rotational lines could be selected, or by the use of a diffraction grating, when reliable long term operation at a specific wavelength is obtained. In the first case, the output power is higher with 15-50% than in the case when a diffraction grating is used. The tunability of diffraction grating controlled CO//2 lasers is increased to 40-70 vibrational-rotational lines, depending on the single pass gain and on the transmission of the coupling mirror. The output power of the tunable, frequency stabilized CO//2 lasers varies between a watt fraction and 15 w.