JPS6251277A - Gas laser device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To simplify the structure of a cathode, to decrease man-hours in manufacturing the title device and in maintenance and inspection and to reduce the capacity of a gas circulating blower, by providing a plurality of auxiliary discharge electrodes between the cathode and an anode on a plane, which intersects the flow of laser gas at a right angle. CONSTITUTION:A cathode 10 is arranged at the upstream side of the flow of laser gas P. An anode 13 is arranged at the downstream side. A DC voltage is applied across both electrodes 10 and 13, and glow discharge is generated in the same direction as the flow of the laser gas P. The laser beam output C is taken out with the excitation of the laser gas and the resonation of an optical resonator. A plurality of auxiliary discharge electrodes 15 are provided between the cathode 10 and the anode 13 on a plane, which intersect the flow of the laser gas P at a right angle. The electrodes 15 generate auxiliary discharge in the direction crossing the flow of the laser gas P between the cathode 10 and the anode 13. A plate body 12 provided with a plurality of projections 12a is provided at the side part of the cathode 10 or the anode 13 facing the auxiliary discharge electrodes generating the auxiliary discharge.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical field of the invention] This eleventh generation generates a discharge in substantially the same direction as the flow of the laser gas, and is perpendicular to the flow of the gas laser. The present invention relates to a gas circulation type biaxially orthogonal type gas laser device that emits a laser beam in a direction.

[The trickery of invention and its problems]

1. A two-wheel orthogonal type device is known as a two-gas laser device. Figure 7 shows the biaxial orthogonal type.

The CO2 laser device is circulated by M0 - in the direction shown by the arrow in the figure, and a cathode 1 is disposed on the upstream side of the flow of this gas, and an anode 2 is disposed on the downstream side of the flow. The cathode 1 is constructed by arranging a large number of cathode bottles 3 at equal intervals in a plane perpendicular to the flow of the gas P. Further, the anode 2 is parallel to the direction perpendicular to the flow of the waste P. It is composed of a plurality of anode rods 4 placed in one place.

And cathode 1. The anode 2 is connected to the DC type #i7 via the ballast resistors 5 and 6, and the space Q between both electrodes is connected to the
A laser beam C is generated by a full anti-fouling mirror 8 and a half mirror 9 provided so as to sandwich a space Q between them.
I'm trying to take it out.

In order to increase the beam output of the conventional two-axis orthogonal Cass laser device configured in this manner to more than several kilowatts, the discharge generated in the space Q between the electrodes must have spatial characteristics. For this reason, in conventional high-power gas laser equipment,
As shown in Fig. 7, it is necessary to bend and place a large number of cathode bins 3 in the order of hundreds to thousands, which requires a lot of effort in manufacturing the l1if, and also requires a large amount of space between the ribs for maintenance and inspection. The disadvantage was that it was costly.

Furthermore, if the cathode 1 is constituted by a large number of cathode bins 3, the fluid resistance of the gas circulation path will inevitably increase, so there is also the drawback that the blower for gas circulation must have a high output.

[Purpose of the present invention] The present invention was made based on these conventional drawbacks, and its purpose is to simplify the cathode structure, and to improve the structure of the J: device. It is an object of the present invention to provide a waste laser device that can reduce the number of man-hours during manufacturing, maintenance, and inspection, and can also reduce the capacity of a blower for circulating waste.

[Summary of the invention]

In the present invention, a cathode is placed on the upstream side of the flow of laser gas, and an anode is placed on the downstream side of the same, and a DC voltage is applied between the two electrodes to generate a glow discharge in the same direction as the flow of the laser gas. , in a gas laser device which extracts a laser beam output by excitation of laser gas and resonance by an optical resonator, the cathode or A plurality of auxiliary discharge electrodes are provided to avoid generating an auxiliary discharge in a direction transverse to the flow of the laser gas between the anode and the cathode or the anode that causes an auxiliary discharge between the auxiliary discharge electrode and the anode. It is characterized by being formed of a plate-like body having a plurality of protrusions on the side facing the auxiliary discharge electrode.

(Effect of the invention) With this structure, even when the applied voltage is low, auxiliary discharge starts between the protrusion of the cathode or anode and the auxiliary discharge electrode, and discharge from the entire plate electrode to the auxiliary discharge electrode 1i. Since this discharge occurs across the flow of dregs, the width of the main glow discharge between the cathode and the anode increases, resulting in an increase in the spatial distribution of the discharge. Become.

Thus, according to the present invention, instead of a large number of electrode bins,
Since the plate electrode and the auxiliary discharge electrode ensure the spatial and horizontal distribution of discharge, the number of electrode components can be reduced, significantly reducing the number of man-hours required for manufacturing the device and the effort required for maintenance and inspection. can be reduced.

Moreover, since the number of components of the cathode can be reduced, the fluid resistance of the gas circulation path can also be reduced, so that the capacity of the blower for gas circulation can be reduced.

[Embodiment of the Invention] Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In addition, in FIGS. 1 to 3, the same parts as in FIG. 4 are given the same reference numerals, and detailed explanations will be omitted.

FIGS. 1 and 2 show a biaxial orthogonal type gas laser device according to an embodiment, in which the flow of gas P and the resonance direction of light are substantially perpendicular to each other. That is, the cathode 10 is
It is composed of a plurality of cathode bins 11 arranged in upper and lower stages in the resonance direction and whose tips extend in the direction of the flow of gas P, and cathode plates 12 fixed to the tips of these cathode bins 11. ing. The number of cathode bins 11 is significantly smaller than the conventional one shown in FIG. The cathode plate 12 has both surfaces arranged parallel to the resonance direction, and has protrusions 12a formed at both ends on the tip side. The anode 13 provided on the downstream side of the gas is composed of two rods 14 disposed parallel to each other in two upper and lower stages with the resonance direction aligned in the longitudinal direction. Furthermore, between the negative 4fi10 and the @pole 13,
Further, an auxiliary discharge electrode 15 is arranged at fff It close to the cathode 10 . As shown in FIG. 2, this auxiliary discharge N-electrode 15 is composed of three auxiliary electrode rods 16 arranged at different positions in the vertical direction with respect to the cathode 10 and parallel to the anode rod 14. and.

This auxiliary discharge voltage 1ii15 is connected to the anode side of the power source 7 via the ballast resistor 11.

With such a structure, the sunset discharge first occurs at the cathode 10.
and the auxiliary discharge electrode 15. Some of the charged particles generated here reach the anode 13 on the gas flow. Therefore, the main glow discharge starts at a lower voltage than when the auxiliary discharge electrode 15 is not present.

By the way, in general, in a discharge in a waste flow, the discharge path tends to follow the gas flow, so if the gap on the cathode side is 1 cm or more, the spatial uniformity of the discharge will be lost. Therefore, conventionally it has not been possible to reduce the number of cathode bins.

However, in this case, the cathode plate 12 is used as the cathode 10, and the protrusion 12a is formed on the cathode plate 12, so that even under high gas pressure of 50 Torr or more, the glow does not become uneven, and the cathode glow is transferred to the cathode plate. It can be spread evenly over 12 surfaces. In other words, the auxiliary discharge generated across the gas flow between the cathode 10 and the auxiliary hQ electrode 15 spreads uniformly over the entire cathode plate 12, resulting in a disastrous 1
The spatial uniformity of the main glow discharge between 0 and positive 4I113 can also be increased.

This was also confirmed by experiments conducted by the present inventors. In other words, in this experiment, even if the cathode bin 11 was reduced to half of the conventional size, the spatial uniformity of the discharge was not lost, and the discharge power input into the gas excitation region (space Q) was significantly reduced. was found to increase.

Therefore, in this case, the density of the cathode bins 11 in the plane perpendicular to the flow of the gas P can be made sparser than in the conventional case, so that the fluid resistance of the gas circulation path can be reduced. Therefore, the number of blowers for gas circulation can be reduced.

Note that the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments.

In the first embodiment, the cathode plate 12 is arranged parallel to the resonance direction, but as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the cathode plate 12 may be arranged perpendicular to the resonance direction.

Further, as shown in FIG. 5, both the electrode plate 12 and the auxiliary electrode rod 16 may be arranged in a direction perpendicular to the resonance direction.

All of these devices have a significantly smaller number of components than conventional devices, and it is clear that they contribute to reducing man-hours for manufacturing, maintenance, and inspection.

The device shown in FIG. 6 also includes a current limiting impedance 21 and an AC power source 2 between the auxiliary discharge electrode 15 and the DC power source 7.
2 are inserted in series.

According to such a device, not only the above-mentioned effects are achieved, but also the effect that the load on the DC power supply 7 can be reduced is achieved.

Further, in the present invention, the auxiliary discharge electrode 15 may be made of a resistor such as graphite or silicon carbide. In this case, it is possible to omit part of the ballast resistor 17 and impedance 21.

Further, in each of the above embodiments, the cathode is a plate-shaped body, but if the auxiliary discharge N-electrode 15 is to cause an auxiliary discharge between the anodes, the anode is formed into a plate-shaped body, and the plate-shaped body is used as the anode. A plurality of protrusions may be formed on the side facing the auxiliary discharge electrode.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the essential parts of a casslaying device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic side view of the same device, and FIGS. FIG. 7 is a perspective view showing main parts of a conventional gas laser device. 1.10... cathode, 2,13... anode, 3.11.
...Cathode bottle, 4.14...Anode rod, 5, 6, 1
7... Ballast resistance, 8... Total reflection mirror, 9...
- Half mirror 112a... Protrusion, 15... Auxiliary discharge electrode, 16... Auxiliary electrode rod, 21... Current limiting impedance, 31... Cathode plate, P... Scrap, Q.
...Space, 0...Laser beam.

Claims (4)

[Claims] (1) A cathode is placed on the upstream side of the flow of laser gas, and an anode is placed on the downstream side of the same, and a DC voltage is applied between the two electrodes to generate a glow discharge in the same direction as the flow of the laser gas to excite the laser gas. In a gas laser device that extracts laser beam output by resonance with an optical resonator,
A plurality of auxiliary discharges arranged between the cathode and the anode and on a plane orthogonal to the flow of the laser gas, and for generating auxiliary discharges in a direction transverse to the flow of the laser gas between the cathode and the anode. The cathode or the anode, which is provided with an electrode and generates an auxiliary discharge between the auxiliary discharge electrode and the auxiliary discharge electrode, is a plate-like body formed with a plurality of protrusions on a side facing the auxiliary discharge electrode. gas laser equipment. (2) The gas laser device according to claim 1, wherein the auxiliary discharge electrode generates a glow discharge between the auxiliary discharge electrode and the cathode. (3) The gas laser device according to claim 1, wherein an alternating current discharge is caused between the auxiliary discharge electrode and the cathode or the anode. (4) The gas laser device according to claim 1, wherein the auxiliary discharge electrode is a resistor.