Five years ago, many people dismissed CO2 lasers as too large, too expensive, or otherwise impractical for their applications. But during the past five years, the number and diversity of applications for RF-excited, sealed carbon dioxide (CO2) lasers with output powers between 10 and 250 W have exploded. The market size has actually grown an average of 60% per year, with unit sales likely to exceed 2500 lasers in 1995.
Saturable Bragg reflector modelocks solid-state lasers