The mechanism of the effect of striations on the output power of a helium-neon laser

An analysis is presented of longitudinal distributions of gain, the amplitude of traveling striations, and the amplitude of discharge-current modulation by a local transverse magnetic field in the active medium of an He-Ne laser. It is shown that the striations produce a reduction in the electron density averaged over the length of striations. Therefore, striations can lead either to a reduction in the laser output power at suboptimal discharge currents or to an increase in laser output power at superoptimal discharge currents.