Design, Construction and Characterization of Sealed Tube Medium Power CO2 Laser System
Konstantinos Ninikas
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
An interesting approach toward a low-cost - low-power laser system.
The introduction is missing. You are starting directly with the literature review, which should be extended to present the differences with similar approaches.
Chapters 2 & 3 should be under the same chapter where the overall design should be presented (of course in sub-chapters for each different part).
Chapters 5 & 6 should be under a chapter entitled results where all the data should be clearly presented.
Finally, the conclusion chapter should be enhanced to summarise the findings.
Author Response
Dear authors,
An interesting approach toward a low-cost - low-power laser system.
Point 1: The introduction is missing. You are starting directly with the literature review, which should be extended to present the differences with similar approaches.
Response 1: The introduction part is revised. Now we have added a small introduction of CO2 laser in the beginning. The article is basically about CO2 fabrication and applications so in the introduction we did not add that much about the CO2 laser system. We also include references in which a similar kind of technique is used to fabricate a low-cost gas laser to get nano-second pulses.
Point 2: Chapters 2 & 3 should be under the same chapter where the overall design should be presented (of course in sub-chapters for each different part).
Response 2: Chapters 2 and 3 are now combined in the updated version.
Point 3: Chapters 5 & 6 should be under a chapter entitled results where all the data should be clearly presented.
Response 3: Chapters 5 and 6 are now combined in the updated version.
Point 4: Finally, the conclusion chapter should be enhanced to summarise the findings.
Response 4: The conclusion is revised quantitatively.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
1. The introduction section should be revised to clearly present the research backgound and gap of corresponding topic.
2. The references are relatively old, please update them and provide the recent progress of related topic.
3. For the simulation work, how to record the input parameters and set the boundary conditions? Please also add the detailed validation process/data.
4. For the design simulation, the authors also have to add the detailed settings.
5. What are the significant factors affecting the laser penetration rate for different materials? Why did the authors select statistical analysis method to study the penetration rate to improve the reliability of the research?
6. The conclusions should be revised and include more quantitative results.
Author Response
Point 1: The introduction section should be revised to clearly present the research backgound and gap of correspondding topic.
Response 1: The introduction part is revised. Now we have added a small introduction of CO2 laser in the beginning. The article is basically about CO2 fabrication and application so in the introduction we did not add that much about the CO2 laser system.
Point 2: The references are relatively old, please update them and provide the recent progress of related topic.
Response 2: I added some new references. Most work is done on applications these days, so it was quite difficult to find references that are based on the fabrication of CO2 laser systems. We also include references in which a similar kind of technique is used to fabricate a low-cost gas laser to get nano-second pulses.
Point 3: For the simulation work, how to record the input parameters and set the boundary conditions? Please also add the detailed validation process/data.
Response 3: The simulation is done exactly by considering the parameters given in the parameter of specifications of laser tube like length, pressure, and reflectivity of mirrors etc. Using Physical Optics Propagation (POP) algorithm the simulation is done to analyze the beam shape at the output.
Point 4: For the design simulation, the authors also have to add the detailed settings.
Response 4: In the design simulation of the high-tension pump source all the detail are given in the article and in figure 2.
Point 5: What are the significant factors affecting the laser penetration rate for different materials? Why did the authors select statistical analysis method to study the penetration rate to improve the reliability of the research?
Response 5: The most important factors are laser power, cutting speed, focal position, focal length, the distance between the laser and the cut material, and cutting gas pressure to ensure the laser cutting process is of high quality and speed. Besides that, material properties like thickness, tensile strength, melting point, and optical properties also affect the penetration rate through different materials. We did not have the resources to study the application more deeply so we find the time is taken by the beam to pass through the particular thickness then from that we find out its penetration rate by considering different parameters like time, thickness, etc.
Point 6: The conclusions should be revised and include more quantitative results.
Response 6: The conclusion is revised quantitatively.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The comments have been addressed by the authors
Author Response
Thank you for the useful suggestions.
Reviewer 2 Report
It seems that the authors mainly updated the references, while they did not provided detailed revision and point-to-point responses the the reviewer's comments and suggestions. Please revise the sections 3 and 4 comprehensively according to the comments given by reviewers.
Author Response
Point: It seems that the authors mainly updated the references, while they did not provided detailed revision and point-to-point responses the reviewer's comments and suggestions. Please revise the sections 3 and 4 comprehensively according to the comments given by reviewers.
Response: As we mentioned in the article there are small industries and educational institutes which cannot afford expensive commercially available lasers, so our work is focused on CO2 laser system fabrication with limited resources. We did the characterization and application study within the limited resources as much as we can, and all the analysis results are placed with the explanation. We addressed all the previous comments and edit the article and addressed all the parameters and methods properly as much as possible without making the article lengthy.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
