Electric discharge excitation and energy source integration

Methods of transferring energy from electrical storage to an electro-negative gas discharge at high repetition rates of approx. < 1.5 kHz examined. The electrical-energy range of interest is 1 - 10 J. The XeCl gas-discharge laser system is used as a representative discharge. Computer modeling of the pertinent kinetics of a He/Xe/HCl gas mixture which was performed in conjunction with various configurations of pulse-forming networks is described; gas thyratrons and magnetic switches were used as switching elements. Due to the relatively constant E/N characterisitics of this system, a stripline arrangement is shown to provide the most efficient method of energy transfer for pulse lengths approx < 50 nsec. Capacitor discharge methods are applicable to shorter pulse lengths. Construction of a closed-cycled, high-rep-rate XeCl gas-discharge laser is described. Operation of an X-ray preionized system at 1.5 kHz is also detailed; no contamination was observed in this configuration. The application of the XeCl laser as a pump source for a high-rep-rate, high-average-power dye laser is also described. A flowing-dye jet was utilized in order to avoid liquid-cell boundary-layer problems of a fast-flow stream. The optical quality of the jet stream was the limiting factor in achieving the power goals. A method of achieving high efficiency in a rare-gas-halide system is proposed via a magnetic switch and prepulse arrangement in conjunctions with a stripline PFN.