Helical-flow CO2 laser

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Abstract
A CO2 laser based on a helical gas‐flow design has been developed. The major features of this device are as follows: (1) an integral heat exchanger plasmatube with much lower gas flow rates than other convection‐cooled lasers, (2) a multiply segmented plasmatube for high‐voltage standoff, (3) coaxial beam and electric discharge with small diameter‐to‐length ratio resulting in high beam quality and high discharge stability, and, (4) a magnetically stabilized discharge position. Gain profile measurements show that the gain distribution highly favors low‐order modes, as desired. Temperature profile measurements of the gas in the plasmatube verify the efficiency of the integral heat exchanger concept. Specific laser configurations based on this design concept, intended for industrial material‐processing applications, and with output powers of 400–500 W/m, are described.