Why is There Carbon Monoxide in Some CO2 Lasers?
(From: Ngiam Shih Tung (stngiam@pacific.net.sg).) My company recently bought some Lumonics lasermark lasers which are supposed to be CO2 lasers, but I was surprised to see that it contains half as much carbon monoxide as carbon dioxide. Specifically, the Lasermark IV premix gas contains 4% CO and 8% CO2 in He and nitrogen. Why would Lumonics include CO in what is supposed to be a CO2 laser? This is a continuous flow laser, and as far as I know, lasing only takes place at the CO2 wavelength. I’ve flipped through a number of laser textbooks, but none of them mention anything about deliberately adding CO to CO2 lasers. I did find out that CO2 will dissociate to CO during the discharge, and that CO lasers exist, but no mixed CO/CO2 lasers were mentioned. (From: Andrei Romanov (anrom@aha.ru).) It is well-known problem: dissociation of CO2 to O2 and CO in lasers with closed chamber. Some devices have special regenerators of mixture. But I believe that Lumonics added CO to gas mixture especia
