Quantum Electronics Letters A Continuous Discharge Improves the Performance of the Cu/CuCI Double Pulse Laser

Abstract-A continuous glow discharge was applied to a Cu/CuCl dou-ble pulse her. Maximum laser pulse energy was observed to increase as much as 35 percent at low buffer gas pressure and 3.5 percent at optimum buffer gas pressure. Minimum and optimum time delays de-creased with increasing glow discharge current. The greater pulse energy may be due to increased rate of current rise of the pumping discharge pulse, and ecreased contribution to the population of metastable copper from ion recombination. T HE COPPER laser has received much attention in recent years as a source of intense optical pulses El]-[5]. Unlike the conventional copper laser which requires a tube tempera-ture of about 1500°C to obtain sufficient copper vapor from pure copper [4], the use of copper chloride (CuC1) as a source enables optimum tube temperatures to be near 400°C [ 11. To obtain laser action from CuCl vapor, at least two discharge pulses are required. The first discharge pulse dissociates th