Beam quality of a high-power CO2 laser MOPA system

✍ Scribed by W Riede; W Mayerhofer

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 284 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0030-3992
• DOI: 10.1016/s0030-3992(98)00082-6

✦ Synopsis

In this paper, the eects of ampli®cation of diraction-limited pulsed CO 2 laser radiation over several meters of ampli®cation length on beam quality and pointing stability are documented. Millijoule pulses are ampli®ed up to 3 J. Generation and ampli®cation of the 10 mm wavelength pulses were performed in the discharge volume of an e-beam sustained CO 2 laser. Beam quality is measured according to the ISO/DIS 11146 standard in terms of the beam quality factor M 2 . Fluence distributions were recorded with a beam analysing system of 100 mm spatial resolution. M 2 parameter values ranged up to 1.55 for ampli®ed pulse energies of 3 J. The necessity of beam-quality restoring techniques is inferred for the multijoule pulse energy regime.