4.2.

Molecular Gas Lasers from the Infrared Region

67

~ RF Power supply circuit Active medium channels

Fig. 4.6

CO laser with an axial flow.

2

drill through plastics, rubber, ceramics and glass. They can also be used to mark a number of metals, including mild and stainless steels and titanium, because laser marks are more permanent than ink-jet printing. Although most metals show small absorption at 10 mm, titanium is an exception because it absorbs strongly in this region. Therefore, CO2 lasers are particularly useful for cutting titanium. Low-power CO2 lasers can be used to weld some thin metals and foils. Metal-marking and welding need powers between 50 and 200 W. Drilling with low-power CO2 lasers of metals on printed circuit boards is increasingly used. Although copper reflects CO2 radiation, new methods of oxidizing the copper surface of circuit boards have made it possible to drill through the copper. Precise drilling or cutting requires appropriate pulsing conditions, usually at 12 kHz for metals, and up to 100 kHz for non-metals or for welding. A major industrial application of high-power CO2 lasers is thermal etching, to change the crystalline structure of a materials surface in order to increase its durability and strength. High-power CO2 lasers are also used to cut, drill, and weld steel and other less-reflective metals. In medicine, high-power CO2 lasers have long been used as the scalpel in many surgical procedures, because the emission at 10 mm is absorbed quickly by water in flesh, leading to vaporization of the tissue, with a very fine cut-width and with the beneficial cauterizing effect essential in operations on blood-supplying tissue. However, recent developments in laser technology have demonstrated that other types of lasers are more suited for most medical applications. One exception to this trend which has been gaining interest is a cosmetic procedure of skin-smoothing and rejuvenation of severe acne and skin texture imperfections. Another vital medical application is in transmyocardial revascularization (TMR), designed to help people with severe coronary artery disease and angina to relieve chest pain caused by lack of oxygen to the heart. This procedure, which makes tiny holes in the heart to increase the flow of blood to oxygen-starved tissue, has received the US Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) clearance. The CO laser was constructed soon after the CO2 laser. A CO laser emits radiation at wavelengths in the range of 56.5 mm. Like the CO2 laser, it is pumped by an electrical discharge, and its output power is high. It is produced both in a version of a sealed tube filled with an active gas, and as a flowing-gas laser. The flowing-gas laser is less safe because CO is odorless, and a content of 50 ppm in the atmosphere is already dangerous for health, while higher doses are deadly. The sealed-tube CO laser is much less dangerous, as the content of CO is small, and even when the tube is damaged the leakage to the atmosphere does not present a threat.

68

4.

Lasers

The CO lasers find applications in dentistry and gynecology. Moreover, with the development of the technology of flexible optical fibers, which are characterized by high transmission for this spectral range, CO lasers can be considered as tools in medicine and industry. As early as the 1960s, military projects showed interest in CO lasers because of their high powers, but technical obstaclesparticularly in beam propagation, because of strong light absorption by the atmosphere in the range of 56.5 mm, has caused these investigations to decline.

4.3. CHEMICAL LASERS Chemical lasers emit radiation in the far-infrared and infrared regions (1.311 mm). Chemical lasers emitting radiation in the visible range are of great interest for military technologiesfor obvious reasonsalthough they are still in a less mature stage than the infrared chemical lasers. So far we have described lasers that are optically or electrically pumped. The chemical lasers use another type of pumpingthe energy released during chemical reaction. Table 4.1 shows the most typical chemical reactions utilized in chemical lasers. The reactions used most often are based on the generation of excited HF* and DF molecules (Table 4.1). HF and DF lasers are commercially available chemical lasers which deliver radiation up to hundreds of watts. The laser action in chemical lasers occurs between vibrational levels. Isotopic substitution by deuterium in the HF laser is also used to shift emission wavelengths from 2.63.4 mm to 3.54.4 mm. This shift is essential in military applications in which the laser beam travels over large distances, because it can allow strong absorption in the atmosphere. In commercially available HF/DF lasers the hydrogen fluoride is produced by an electric discharge in a tube, via a dissociation reaction of sulfur hexafluoride, SF6. Oxygen is added to react with sulfur. Hydrogen, which is injected into the tube, reacts with fluoride, and generates the hydrogen fluoride HF* in vibrationally excited states. The gas flows quickly through the resonator cavity, perpendicular to the axis (Fig. 4.7). In military lasers, the gas flows with supersonic velocity, in contrast to commercially available lasers in which the velocity is much smaller than the velocity of the sound.
Table 4.1 Typical chemical lasers Laser CO CO2 HBr DF HCl HF I Reaction DF ! CO DF CS OCO ! 2 CO S 2 H Br ! HBr Br F D 2 ! DF D H Cl 2 ! HCl Cl F H 2 ! HF H O I 2 ! O 2I
2 2

Radiation wavelength [mm] 10.011.0 4.95.8 4.04.7 3.54.2 3.54.1 2.63.3 1.3