Laser unit and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10164396-B2
Application number	US-201715720122-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 29, 2017
Priority date	Nov 5, 2013
Publication date	Dec 25, 2018
Grant date	Dec 25, 2018

Abstract

There may be provided a laser unit including a display configured to display one or both of electric power consumed by the laser unit and electric energy consumed by the laser unit.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A laser unit comprising:
a pair of electrodes;
a fan configured to make flow of gas fed to a clearance between the electrodes;
a motor configured to rotate the fan;
a display configured to display one or both of electric power consumed by the laser unit and electric energy consumed by the laser unit; and
a charger configured to apply a voltage between the electrodes,
the electric power consumed by the laser unit including one or more of electric power consumed by the charger, electric power consumed by the motor, and a sum of the electric power consumed by the charger and the electric power consumed by the motor,
the electric energy consumed by the laser unit including one or more of electric energy consumed by the charger, electric energy consumed by the motor, and a sum of the electric energy consumed by the charger and the electric energy consumed by the motor,
the electric power consumed by the motor being calculated based on pressure of the gas fed to the clearance between the electrodes, and
the electric energy consumed by the motor being calculated based on the pressure of the gas fed to the clearance between the electrodes.

2. The laser unit according to claim 1 , wherein the electric energy consumed by the charger is obtained by integrating the electric energy consumed through applying the voltage to the pair of electrodes.

3. The laser unit according to claim 1 , further comprising a standby-power supply configured to supply the laser unit with standby electric power, wherein
the electric power consumed by the laser unit includes a sum of electric power consumed by the charger, the electric power consumed by the motor, and electric power consumed by the standby-power supply, and
the electric energy consumed by the laser unit includes a sum of electric energy consumed by the charger, the electric energy consumed by the motor, and electric energy consumed by the standby-power supply.

4. The laser unit according to claim 1 , further comprising a controller configured to calculate one or both of the electric power consumed by the laser unit and the electric energy consumed by the laser unit.

5. The laser unit according to claim 4 , wherein the controller further controls a flow rate of water cooling at least the charger and the motor, based on one or both of the electric power consumed by the laser unit and the electric energy consumed by the laser unit.

6. The laser unit according to claim 4 , wherein the controller further controls a flow rate of air cooling at least the charger and the motor, based on one or both of the electric power consumed by the laser unit and the electric energy consumed by the laser unit.

7. The laser unit according to claim 4 , further comprising:
a laser resonator configured to amplify light resulting from applying the voltage to the pair of electrodes;
an optical system configured to guide the light amplified by the laser resonator; and
an oxygen concentration meter configured to measure concentration of oxygen in gas passing through the optical system, wherein
the controller further controls a flow rate of the gas passing through the optical system, based on the concentration of the oxygen in the gas passing through the optical system.

8. The laser unit according to claim 4 , further comprising an energy dispersion measurement device configured to measure energy dispersion of laser light emitted from the laser unit, wherein
the controller further controls, based on the energy dispersion, composition of the gas fed to the clearance between the electrodes.

Assignees

• Gigaphoton Inc

Inventors

• Kurosu Akihiko
• Matsunaga Takashi
• Masuda Hiroyuki
• Wakabayashi Osamu
• Tsushima Hiroaki
• Yashiro Masanori
• Ohta Takeshi

Classifications

• H01S3/104

  in gas lasers · CPC title

• H01S3/0971

  transversely excited (H01S3/0975 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H01S3/041

  for gas lasers {(H01S3/0401 takes precedence)} · CPC title

• H01S3/09702

  Details of the driver electronics and electric discharge circuits · CPC title

• H01S3/0404

  Air- or gas cooling, e.g. by dry nitrogen · CPC title