Note: Simple 100 Hz N2 laser with longitudinal discharge tube and high-voltage power supply using neon sign transformer.

Abstract

We developed a longitudinally excited N2 laser with a simple driver circuit and a simple power supply. The N2 laser consisted of a 20 cm-long glass tube with an inner diameter of 2.5 mm, a normal stable resonator formed by flat mirrors, a variable transformer, a neon sign transformer, a spark gap, and a 200 pF capacitance. The N2 laser produced a laser pulse with an energy of 379 nJ and a pulse width of 7.5 ns at a repetition rate of 100 Hz. The laser beam was circular and had a Gaussian profile with a correlation factor of 0.992 93.