Power broadening and its effects in TEA CO2 lasers

In this paper, a new mechanism which limits extracted peak power in transversely excited atmospheric (TEA) CO2 lasers is introduced. This mechanism is power broadening that we considered it as a saturation term here. A comprehensive model has been developed and used to study the influence of the proposed mechanism on the gain switched pulse in TEA CO2 lasers. We have demonstrated that output peak power will be reduced whenever power broadening dominates collision broadening. Also, it has been found that power broadening is more effective than rotational coupling. The numerical simulations well reproduce the experimental gain switched pulse and exactly predict the laser peak power.