High-power gas lasers can be the effective tool in such applications as dismantlement of obsolete nuclear reactors, laser-hardening of the surfaces of railway rails etc. The carried out experiments have shown, that radio frequency (BY) discharge is an effective source of reception of the vibrational-excited CO molecules. Laser generation was shown on small-scale experimental installation. For transition to creation high-power CO laser the clear understanding of the processes occurring in a supersonic stream a CO mixture, excited by RF discharge is necessary, the calculation model of scaling CO laser with RF discharge in supersonic stream therefore was developed. The developed model, proceeding from the given power projected CO laser, allows to calculate parameters of laser installation and to optimize them with the purpose of reception of high value of efficiency and low cost of installation as a whole. The industrial CO laser for dismantlement of obsolete nuclear reactors and hardening the surfaces of railway rails is proposed. The estimated cost of laser is some hundred thousand dollars USA and small sizes of laser head give possibility to install it on manipulator without fiber-optic delivery.

Date Published: 12 April 2007
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 6611, Laser Optics 2006: High-Power Gas Lasers, 66110J (12 April 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.740614

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6611:
Laser Optics 2006: High-Power Gas Lasers
Oleg B. Danilov, Editor(s)