Frequency stabilization of radio frequency excited CO/sub 2/ laser using optogalvanic effect

Many methods were developed to stabilize an RF excited CO/sub 2/ laser. However the RF excited laser lacked a simple and reliable stabilization method. We stabilized the RF excited laser to the centers of the Doppler broadened gain curves using an optogalvanic effect generated from the laser itself, thereby stabilizing the frequency without requiring any specific unit to be arranged inside or outside of a laser cavity. The oscillating frequency of a gas laser using a Fabry-Perot cavity depends on an optical length of the cavity. For this reason, in order to stabilize the oscillating frequency of the laser, it is important to prevent the optical length of the cavity from being affected by the environment where the laser is used. Otherwise, a variation of the optical cavity length should be compensated.