Pump power dependence of the power and time characteristics of light pulses from an electroionization CO laser

The lasing delay and the threshold energy input are studied experimentally as functions of the pump power for a pulsed-electroionization CO laser with a cooled active medium. The specific power output, the laser efficiency, and the pulseform of the laser light are also found as functions of the pump power (PP) and the length of the excitation pulse. It is shown that for any pump energy, there exist optimum values of PP and pulse length that maximize the laser efficiency; the optimization becomes less pronounced as the excess of the pump power over the threshold power increases. It is noted that the peak light power of an electroionization CO laser can be regulated over wide limits by changing PP by a relatively small amount. The experimental findings are analyzed qualitatively.