Argon gas laser device

Claim 1

An argon gas laser for emitting monochromatic light at 4880 Å at relatively high output power utilizing a relatively high discharge current of more than 5 amps comprising: an elongated envelope containing argon gas, an optical resonator having a high reflectance multilayer mirror and an output coupling multilayer facing each other and disposed along the optical axis of said envelope, and a cathode electrode and an anode electrode disposed within said envelope for discharging through said argon gas; said high reflectance multilayer mirror having between 20 and 26 alternately stacked layers of relatively high refractive index material and relatively low refractive index material, said high reflectance mirror having a high reflectance band with a bandwidth 2Δg and a center wavelength λ 0 , said center wavelength having a value less than 4880 Å such that the difference between λ 0 and 4880 Å is an amount between 18.75% and 37.5% of the bandwidth of said high reflectance band, each of said alternately stacked layers having a thickness of λ 0/4 , said high reflectance band of said high reflectance mirror having a tail portion containing high gain wavelengths longer than 4880 Å so that said high reflectance mirror has a higher transmittance of said longer high gain wavelengths positioned in said high reflectance band than the transmittance of said high reflectance mirror for light at 4880 Å; said output coupling multilayer mirror having between 6 and 14 alternately stacked layers of relatively high refractive index material and relatively low refractive index material, said output coupling mirror having a high reflectance zone with a center wavelength longer than 4880 Å and a transmittance of approximately 3% to 6% at 4800 Å.