The role of halogen donors in discharge instability of rare-gas halide excimer lasers

Experimental results on striation instability in a self-sustained discharge-pumped XeCl laser are presented. The presence of HCl proves to be critical to the evolution of this particular mode of instability. The role of halogen donors in discharge instabilities of RGH lasers is discussed. That mixtures containing HCl will be susceptible to striation instability and those with F₂ or NF₃ will not is concluded.This work is based on experiments done when the author was at UCSD