Abstract

High pressure CO₂ lasers operated above 10 atm offer the possibility of continuous tunability over four emission bands between 9 and 11 μm. To take advantage of these sources, one must design a laser system where the usual noisy temporal emission pattern is replaced by smooth, single-mode pulses. Up to date, coupled-cavity configurations,¹ interferometric devices,² and injection seeding³ have been used to achieve single-mode emission from high pressure CO₂ lasers. Injection seeding is particularly attractive since it does not require a complicated resonator design for the high pressure CO₂ laser and continuous tunability of the injection source can be achieved using electrooptic modulation.⁴

© 1990 Optical Society of America