Beam quality of TEA CO_2 laser pulses: Influence of the gas mixture and of intracavity apertures

Abstract

We investigate from both a theoretical and an experimental point of view the dependence of the spatial parameters (integrated along the pulse length) of TEA CO_2 laser pulses on the presence of nitrogen in the gas mixture and also on the size of an intracavity diaphragm used to attenuate higher-order modes.