Abstract

In an electric discharge-excited pulsed gas laser energy is manipulated in two distinctly different ways. One process involves the modulation of electric power to produce a suitable pulse shape for efficient discharge excitation. An important part of this process is the energy transfer from the pulse-forming network (PFN) to the discharge plasma. The second process involves conversion of electron energy to photon energy and is concerned with the electron kinetics, the chemical kinetics and with the optical extraction of energy from the cavity. This paper concentrates on the energy transfer aspects of the laser.

© 1983 Optical Society of America