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question for you RF jocks

Sorry to bug you with what is probably a dumb question, but...

What are the parallel plates in an rf excited CO2 laser acting like? They call it a waveguide type laser, but could it really be modeled as a capacitor, since you have two parallel plates and a dielectric (the unionized and ionized gases)? If it is modeled as such, where does the energy from the driving rf amplifier go? Into heating of the dielectric gasses? If there is a FAQ or some web tutorial that might help me understand this better, please please let me know.

Thanks for your time!

Reply to
Dan
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Definition: waveguide laser: Gas laser in which the tube acts as a channel for the laser beam.

"Waveguide" in this case does not refer to anything electrical going on; it's with the optics.

Yes, the parallel plates just allow you to put a high electric field through the gas. If the field is high enough, free electrons in the plasma will be accelerated enough that when they smack into a molecule of the gas, they can transfer enough energy to raise it to an excited state. Remember, a capacitor is a device to store energy in an electric field. In this case, energy is lost to the plasma, so not all energy comes back out of the capacitor electrically.

Some googling should get you to lots of web resources...try "co2 laser theory" for a search string as a start.

Cheers, Tom

Reply to
Tom Bruhns

Try post in alt.lasers

Mark

Reply to
Mark

Thanks, but there is nobody in alt.lasers that understands RF, or at least nobody who wants to talk about it.

No books that I can find that describe RF excitation of gas molecules either... :-(

Reply to
Dan

There are RF-excited lamps as well. There are no plates in the ones I've seen. I suspect a gas laser would be similar, but with parallel mirrors.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

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