Thermal regime in a coaxial low-pressure CO2 laser

A theoretical analysis is made of the characteristics of the thermal regime in a CO₂ laser with diffusive cooling in which the working mixture is excited in a gap between two coaxial cooled cylinders. It is shown that, in contrast to the conventional tubular lasers, the thermal effects in a coaxial configuration impose no restrictions on the output power per unit length. An increase in the diameters of the cylinders for a constant gap between them can be used to establish a fairly large effectively cooled working zone. This improves greatly the power characteristics of such a laser without significant complication of its construction and without increase in its linear dimensions.