A high power N2 laser using water filled strip lines

A fast Blümlein circuit with a water strip line having an impedance of Z=0.078 is used to excite a TE high power nitrogen laser at =337 nm. A pseudospark switch works as a high power switch. The laser operates without any preionization and delivers an energy of 15 mJ per pulse (7.5 ns FWHM) at 10 kPa nitrogen pressure. The shot to shot reproducibility is better than 5%.