Abstract

The copper laser is a pulsed laser which emits intense (50 - 500 kW), short (20 - 60 ns) pulses at high pulse repetition frequencies (2 - 32 kHz). The laser radiation is in the visible with laser lines al 510.8 nm (green) and 578.2 nm (yellow). Average powers from commercial units range from 10 - 120 W whilst laboratory devices have reached 750 W. Novel unstable resonator designs and amplifier configurations have yielded near diffraction limited beams which may be efficiently amplified to powers in excess of 2 kW with typical wall-plug efficiencies of 1 %. It is this combination of laser parameters that differentiates the copper laser from other laser types.

© 1996 IEEE