EO solution to overcome the transient regime of a “cavity dumped” UV source, or how to work in chopped mode outside the transient regime?

Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Carnot de Bourgogne, CNRS UMR 6303, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, 9 avenue Alain Savary 21000 Dijon, France

^* Corresponding author: olivier.musset@u-bourgogne.fr

Published online: 18 October 2023

Abstract

The "cavity dumped" laser architecture is a very efficient solution for having a high-efficiency pulsed laser source with a shorter pulse duration than a classic Q-Switch laser architecture. This solution makes it possible to obtain laser beams of almost constant pulse duration independently of the repetition rate and the pumping rate and to obtain very good conversion efficiency at 2w and 3w. Unfortunately, this architecture suffers from a handicap with a duration of the transient regime that can exceed ten milliseconds. The very long duration of this transient state makes this architecture incompatible with inherently transient applications such as marking or laser micro-machining. We propose here an electro-optical solution to decorrelate the transient state specific to the CD architecture and that of introduced by the application.