| 摘要 |
The present invention is directed to a high power, ridge waveguide, RF excited slab gas laser (10) with improved ridge electrode design. It is achieved by truncating the ridges (21) in order to decrease resonant frequency of the ridge waveguide structure from microwave into VHF band, (30-300 MHz), which is the most suitable for CO2 laser excitation. The present invention is characterized by a much simpler liquid cooling scheme of the slab electrodes through truncated ridges, which connect electrodes to the inner wall (420) of a vacuum-sealed laser tube (421). A high Q-factor of the truncated ridge waveguide resonator allows for greater RF power coupling efficiency into the gas discharge plasma than is achieved in slab electrode systems resonated with coil inductors. Low voltage RF excitation is applied to both electrodes in anti-phase, which prevents unwanted discharges from electrodes to the inner walls of the tube and to laser resonator mirrors.
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