Automation and Modeling of a V-fold Diffusion Cooled CO2 Laser

1Neal Adam Dcunha, 2Manoj Kumar.G, 2Rajiv Yadav, 3Sushant Mahajan, 2R. Kaul, 1G.Velraj
1Department of Physics, Anna University, College of Engineering, Guindy
2LMPD, RRCAT, Indore
3School of Instrumentation, DAVV Indore.
*Email: nealdcunha21@gmail.com

Automation of a laser system would satisfy the need for agility and improved productivity
leading to lesser operational expenses and safer working conditions. The laser to be automated is
a DC excited V-Fold Diffusion cooled CO2 laser whose laser power depends on the ratio of CO2,
N2 and Helium gas filled in a particular ratio at low pressure in the range of 20-40 mbar.
Automation of this laser enables monitoring & control of parameters like chamber/cylinder(s)
pressure, coolant temperature & flow and output power by a Programmable Logic Controller
(PLC) and assorted hardware. However, the small signal gain per unit length of this laser cannot
be increased beyond a limit as decided by the operating conditions; hence a desired power of 1
kW or higher can be obtained by many V-folds of active medium length if and only if optimum
reflectivity of output coupler is used. An experimental trial for finding optimum gas mixture, total
gas pressure and reflectivity of output coupler for chosen number of limbs is a tedious and time
consuming task. Therefore, a theoretical model is developed to find optimum operating
conditions. This requires knowledge of reduced electric field in the positive glow discharge
column. A self-consistent numerical method was used to estimate the reduced electric field
followed by evaluation of Electron energy Distribution Function (EEDF) to estimate various
excitation rates which act as input for solving coupled rate equations giving laser output power as
a function of operating conditions. The overall work during the project duration will include
automation and theoretical modeling of the V-Fold Diffusion cooled CO2 laser system.

Keywords: V-Fold diffusion cooled CO2 Laser, Boltzmann distribution code, Automation.