Characteristics of a copper bromide laser with flowing Ne-HBr buffer gas

The operating characteristics of a small self-heated copper halide laser (=510.6 and 578.2 nm) are described, where the copper lasant atoms are produced by electric-discharge dissociation of copper bromide that is generatedin situ by flowing Ne-HBr gas mixture over copper pieces in the laser tube. The excitation technique permits fast startup (<1 min to laser oscillation from cold), and rapid and simple control of the CuBr vapour pressure, simultaneously introducing H₂ to increase the efficiency. Specific laser output energies and average powers of 12J cm^–3 and 195 mW cm^–3, respectively, are almost a factor of 2 higher than those previously reported in the literature for multi-kilohertz copper bromide lasers. A maximum power of 7.8 W was obtained from the 40 cm³ active region. At its highest efficiency (0.8%) the laser produced 6.1 W.