A 10 cm aperture,high quality TEA CO2 laser

Experiments have been performed on a corona preionization type 10 cm aperture TEA CO₂ laser. For a CO₂:N₂:He=1: 1: 7: mixture an output energy of 34 joule per liter and for a 1 : 1 : 10 mixture 40 joule per liter could be obtained. The overall efficiency is about 18%. The time behaviour of the current and voltage of the system shows a delay of several hundreds of nanoseconds after the preionization peak, which indicates a relatively low initial electron-density level. Neverthe less, it proved to be high enough to obtain a very homogeneous discharge and reproducible output energy.