High efficiency, high-energy performance of an X-ray preionized Ar-Xe laser

Improved performance has been obtained from the X-ray preionized argon-xenon laser by using a spiker-sustainer circuit to efficiently pump the discharge. An output of 420 mJ was obtained from a 0.4-L active volume at 2-atm pressure with an overall efficiency of 1%. An efficiency of 4.1% due to the sustainer contribution alone was also realized.<
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