Performance of hybrid, diffraction, and continuously coupled cat-eye resonators with kinetically enhanced copper vapor lasers

摘要

Abstract. New resonators, namely the hybrid cat-eye resonatornu0001HCERu0002, diffraction-coupled cat-eye resonator u0001DCCERu0002, and continu-nously coupled cat-eye resonator u0001CCCERu0002 are demonstrated for the firstntime here in a kinetically enhanced copper vapor laser with high opticalnextraction of 70 to 80%, low beam divergence u00010.15 mrad u0001approxi-nmately five times the diffraction limitu0002, and high misalignment tolerancenu00015 to 6 mrad achieved simultaneously from each of these configura-ntions. The laser used in the experiment is a 45- to 47-mm bore, 50-Wnkinetically enhanced copper vapor laser. In the case of HCER, the lasernbeam divergence reduces to about 0.12 mrad u0001u000130-fold reductionu0002 in annunstable direction and about 0.5 mrad u0001approximately seven-fold reduc-ntionu0002 in a stable direction with average beam power of about 35 W, whichnis u000170% of 50-W maximum set power of the laser. In the DCCER con-nfiguration, laser power achieved is about u000137 W u000175% of 50-W lasernpoweru0002 with beam divergence of about 0.17 mrad and misalignment tol-nerance of u00015 mrad. In CCCER, the output power of about 40 W u000180% ofn50-W laser poweru0002 is achieved with beam divergence of about 0.1 mradnu0001approximately three to four times the diffraction limitu0002. © 2010 Society ofnPhoto-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. u0003DOI: 10.1117/1.3487746