Gas requirements and adequate supply systems for CO₂ and excimer lasers

To achieve a high return of investment, expensive laser systems must be used to their capacity, avoiding any power loses and downtime. Even if the resonator mirrors or output coupler are not damaged after filling the laser with wrong or impure gas the cleaning of the resonator by successive venting and evacuating can take several hours for high power lasers with large cavities. Because the gas is a critical component for the laser process, gas impurities have been suspected and are proven as one source of power losses and optical degradation of laser systems.