Copper vapor laser with decreased energy deposition into discharge

Copper vapor lasers, oscillating on the atomic Cu transitions at 510.6 nm and 578.2 nm wavelength, are the most powerful and effective pulsing lasers on metal vapors. They find wide application in devices of remote probing of an atmosphere, precision processing of materials, in projection microscopes, in medical systems, for pumping of dye lasers, in show-technique etc. However, efficiency of industrial copper vapor lasers varies in rang of 0.5-1%. The best results were achieved with laboratory setups and are equal to: 2-3%-practical efficiency (Jones et al., 1994; Astadjov et al., 1997) and 9%-physical efficiency (Soldatov et al., 1995). Therefore investigation of ways of copper laser efficiency elevating still remains an actual problem. One method of the laser efficiency elevating is diminution of power deposited into discharge without decreasing of lasing power. Diminution of input power may be carried out by two means: restriction of discharge current (Soldatov et al., 1995) and using of the small capacitance storage capacitor in the excitation circuit. The aim of the present work is studying of a mode of decreased energy deposition into discharge in a copper vapor laser at switching the active element to small working capacitance.