Kinetic process of UV Cu+ laser in Ne-CuBr longitudinal pulsed discharge

Abstract

The kinetic process of Cu(+) UV laser in Ne-CuBr longitudinal pulsed discharge is analyzed and a comprehensive self-consistent physical model is developed. The temporal evolutions of discharge parameters, main particle densities, the electron temperature, and the laser pulse intensity are numerically calculated. The model results illustrate the process of population inversion and the lasing mechanism. The calculations on the influences of the tube radius and Br atoms on the laser output characteristic well explain the experimental results.

Kinetic analysis of the factors limiting the output power of the Ne–CuBr UV laser

“…With the self-consistent kinetic model described in Ref. [9], we have the volume number density of photons, N p , in the cavity as a function of the tube diameter, so the laser pulse power and the laser pulse energy in the cavity can be calculated from the following relations:…”

“…The kinetic model was described in the previous work in detail. [9] It was composed of a set of selfconsistent first order differential equations including the excitation circuit equations and kinetic rate equa-tions. Besides the energy levels related to the 248.6 nm in a univalent copper ion, eleven atomic copper levels were considered to describe the micro kinetic processes.…”

“…The simulation results were determined by a set of boundary parameters including the geometrical dimension of the discharge tube, the parameters of the optical cavity, the neon buffer gas pressure, the reservoir and tube wall temperatures, and the parameters of the excitation circuit, of which the typical values were given in Ref. [9]. The equations were solved by using the ODE solver of the Matlab software, in which a set of selfconsistent boundary values is obtained by ten circles calculation, and the differential equations were then solved by the backward differentiation method.…”

“…In our previous work, a self-consistent kinetic model for the Ne-CuBr UV laser was built concentrating on the 248.6 nm laser line, in which typical evolutions of the main micro species were simulated, and the obtained results were consistent with measurements. [9] In the present paper, the kinetic processes of optimizing the discharge tube diameter, the neon gas pressure and the reservoir temperature are analysed by using the kinetic model, and the factors limiting the laser output power are also discussed.…”