Considerations on high peak powers from CO2and CO2- mixture lasers

A pulsed excitation was used to study high peak power generation in CO
2
and CO
2
-mixture flowing gas lasers. A rotating mirror was used as a
Q
switch with a variable delay between excitation pulse and mirror alignment. A variation of the time delay and multiple-exposure photographs can permit a measure of the population inversion versus time to be photographed. High-voltage pulses were used with higher than usual gas pressures to generate peak powers of about 30 kW. Peak power was shown to be primarily dependent on CO
2
partial pressure in CO
2
-He and CO
2
-N
2
mixtures.