Abstract: | Working-level-population processes are analyzed on the basis of detailed investigations of the amplitude-time structure of the laser and spontaneous emission following a pulsed electric discharge in the mixtures He + R (R = Ar, Kr, Xe), Ar + Xe. Account is taken in the analysis of excitation by electrons (direct and stepwise) and of population as a result of relaxation processes (collisions of second kind with electrons; radiative cascades, recombination processes; collisions with the atoms of the working and buffer gases; excitation transfer from helium molecules). It is concluded that under optimum efficiency conditions inversion is produced in the lasers considered as a result of direct electron collision with the working atoms (Ar, Kr, Xe), which are in the ground state.Translated from Lazernye Sistemy, pp. 15–34, 1982. |