CO2 laser excited by a long pulse capacitively coupled discharge

A CO2 TEA laser is excited by a preionized discharge through dielectric electrodes with single pulse durations of 100-300 ns (full width at half-maximum). For constant input energy, output energy and efficiency are found to increase with pulse duration giving rise to a maximum enhancement of approximately 20% over the range tested. An output comparable to metallic electrode devices was obtained. Optimum performance was achieved for a total circuit inductance on the order of 2 microH.