Electric discharge lasers with plate electrodes and stabilized discharge

Abstract

The electric-discharge HF, N<SUB>2</SUB>, XeF-lasers with a new designs of electrode unit was developed. Both electrodes are made of insulated plates, and each pair of plates, located in one plane forms the electrode section. Each electrode section is connected to a power source through stabilizing inductance. Stable homogeneous discharge in electric-discharge lasers based on multisectional electrode unit was realized. High efficiency of generation in HF, N<SUB>2</SUB> and XeF-lasers was received. It is shown for HF-laser, that with a new electrode unit in the version without preionization the volumetric discharge in a wide range of active gas pressure 20...130 Torr and the value of an interelectrode gap 10...50 nm are realized. On a mixture of H<SUB>2</SUB> - SF<SUB>6</SUB> the laser energy 1,2 J with technical efficiency 3,5% was received. Also N<SUB>2</SUB> and XeF-lasers based on multisectional electrode unit in the version with spark gaps preionization were investigated. In N<SUB>2</SUB>-laser without gas flow, the pulse repetition rate up to 200 Hz was realized. In some modes practically linear growth of laser average power up to 60 Hz was observed.