▲ Optical |
This is a folded-resonator carbon dioxide laser I came by a couple of years ago. I eventually got around to cutting it open to see what the innards are like. I don't have the means currently of actually running it, but it looks to be in excellent condition. It is probably quite a powerful laser, since the total cavity length is over 2m - I'm guessing it would be capable of several hundred watts of output power.
Here's some photos of the laser, with comments:
The Z-resonator structure provides a very compact means of getting a long cavity length out of a short laser structure. Aligning it is probably a bit more difficult since there are four mirrors to adjust (three high reflectors and one output coupler). As for driving it, the laser appears as a parallel LC resonant load and so it can be driven at resonance with an RF power supply. Frequencies are typically in the 10-20MHz range, so nothing too drastic. In actual fact, Synrad publish driving circuits for their lasers (these are available in the user manuals) and they look surprisingly simple - nothing more than a single-MOSFET oscillator with some feedback from the laser head to keep it locked on resonance. So, if I ever have a free couple of months and a big tank of laser mix, I might give it a whirl!
▲ Optical |