Abstract

In the early 1970's, a U.S. laser manufacture introduced a low power, air-cooled scientific argon ion laser. This laser was applied in the reprographics industry to color separators by manufacturers overseas within the next few years. Later, the same type laser was applied to high speed computer printers. By today's standards, these were primitive lasers. Their lifetime was not long, their power low and they required periodic maintenance. The lasers were fragile as well. Despite these drawbacks, these air­cooled lasers had some very desirable properties. As opposed to other ion lasers, they required no water cooling. Their power requirements were modest and the lasers and associated power supplies where small. They also operated in the blue-green with the superb optical properties and noise performance of low power gas lasers such as He-Ne.

© 1992 Optical Society of America