Line-dependent saturation in CO2 lasers

Line dependent saturation has been studied in a CO₂ waveguide laser, operating cw in 100 lines of the 9 m and 10 m bands. In both bands, for constant discharge conditions, the saturation intensity is found to be strictly inversely proportional to the small signal gain for lines in the range J=2 to J=48 in both the P and the R branches. For lasers operating well above threshold this implies an output power which is essentially independent of the line number. The effect is verified experimentally, and discussed theoretically.Supported by the Danish Science Research Council under grant no. 11-7777