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A high power copper vapor laser (CVL) system in master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) configuration has been developed for laser isotope separation program in Japan. Maximum output power of 650 W has been successfully achieved with 9-cm diameter and 350 cm discharge length amplifier. Also MOPA output power of 2.4 kW (2.45 kW maximum) has been demonstrated in small master oscillator with 4 cm bore and 4 stage power amplifier with 9 cm bore configuration. The authors developed a thermal calculation code to maintain an optimum copper vapor density throughout a large volume and a new thermal insulation structure design method has been proposed to combine two different heat insulators to make longitudinal temperature distribution of the laser tube as flat as possible. A CVL discharge circuit has been improved by applying an excellent magnetic switch which provide a ∼ 90 kV- 4000 A pulse to a CVL at 4.4 kHz repetition rate. This paper reports such CVL design methods together with the performance of the designed high power CVL system.