Scaling of Pulsed-Periodical Electric-Discharge Wide-Aperture Lasers

摘要

The main reasons, complicating increase of the laser energy and average output power in the wide-aperture electric-discharge lasers, operating in the repetition rate mode, are analyzed in the paper. Physical and technical requirements to the design of the laser chamber and pump source for obtaining of the high technical parameters are formulated. Lines of attack on the problem of creation wide-aperture laser consisting of separate sections, located along the active length, are proposed. A new design of electrode unit, in which each electrode is made of electrically insulated plates, connected to a common bus of the pump source through a separate stabilizing inductor, is the foundation of this arrangement. The results of the test of the new electrode unit in electric-discharge HF(DF)-chemical laser are presented. It is experimentally shown that at its use in the laser with active mixture, based on SF_6 and H_2(D_2), is formed a stable volume discharge at different interelectrode gaps (up to 12 cm). The maximum laser efficiency 3.5% for HF and 2.4% for DF at the specific output energy of 4.2 J/l and 2.9 J/l accordingly was obtained. The conception of the wide-aperture electric-discharge laser creation with a large active volume, based on the cylindrical shells, is considered.