Fast optical shuttering and wavelength selection in copper vapor lasers and copper bromide lasers by intracavity polychromatic acoustooptic modulation

We propose a fast effective intracavity technique for optical shuttering and wavelength selection in copper vapor lasers and copper bromide lasers by inserting a polychromatic acoustooptic modulator in a low-intensity section of a classical negative branch unstable resonator. Single-pulse or multiple-pulse operation in one- or two-wavelength emission was achieved in a CuBr laser system. The spatial distributions of the output laser beam as recorded by a CCD camera showed neither power losses nor worsening of the beam quality in comparison with the classical scheme without the modulator. The laser output was characterized with a high degree of linear polarization.