Gaslaser

A gas laser is a laser whose cavity is filled with gas. It serves as the active medium to generate high radiation powers in a wide, ranging from the ultraviolet to the far infrared spectrum.

The pump laser is usually by electrical gas discharge, the discharge currents ranging from a few 10-3 A at continuous excitation up to 103 A with pulse excitation. Rare is optical pumping and pumping with microwaves. Another possibility of pumping excitation is by chemical reaction of the active medium. The gases are thereby located within a laser tube at pressures between 10 and 106 Pa at some high-pressure lasers.

The first gas laser, a helium -neon laser, has been developed in 1960 by Ali Javan and William R. Bennett. Currently, gas lasers are particularly displaced by solid-state lasers and semiconductor lasers from their classical fields of application.

Types

• Carbon dioxide laser
• Carbon monoxide laser
• Argon- ion laser
• Helium -neon laser
• Nitrogen laser
• Metal vapor lasers (for example, copper vapor lasers, helium -cadmium lasers)
• Excimer laser

Weblink

• Laser beam source