Abstract.
The He-Ar-Cu+ IR laser operates in a hollow-cathode discharge, typically in a mixture of helium with a few-% Ar. The population inversion of the Cu+ ion levels, responsible for laser action, is attributed to asymmetric charge transfer between He+ ions and sputtered Cu atoms. The Ar gas is added to promote sputtering of the Cu cathode. In this paper, a hybrid modeling network consisting of several different models for the various plasma species present in a He-Ar-Cu hollow-cathode discharge is applied to investigate the effect of Ar concentration in the gas mixture on the discharge behavior, and to find the optimum He/Ar gas ratio for laser operation. It is found that the densities of electrons, Ar+ ions, Arm * metastable atoms, sputtered Cu atoms and Cu+ ions increase upon the addition of more Ar gas, whereas the densities of He+ ions, He2 + ions and Hem * metastable atoms drop considerably. The product of the calculated Cu atom and He+ ion densities, which determines the production rate of the upper laser levels, and hence probably also the laser output power, is found to reach a maximum around 1–5 % Ar addition. This calculation result is compared to experimental measurements, and reasonable agreement has been reached.
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Received: 14 October 2002 / Revised version: 28 November 2002 / Published online: 19 March 2003
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Bogaerts, A., Grozeva, M. Effect of helium/argon gas ratio in a He-Ar-Cu+ IR hollow-cathode discharge laser: modeling study and comparison with experiments . Appl Phys B 76, 299–306 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-002-1093-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-002-1093-3