A discharge-pumped gas laser has a pressure con-tainer filled with a laser gas under pressure and a pair ofelongate main discharge electrodes. The main dischargeelectrodes are disposed in the pressure container in con-fronting relationship to each other for producing an elec-tric discharge in the laser gas in a main discharge regiondefined therebetween to excite the laser gas for laseremission. The laser gas is circulated to flow through themain discharge region in a direction perpendicular to themain discharge electrodes. The laser gas in the main dis-charge region is preionized by an UV preionizer disposedeither upstream or downstream of the main discharge regionwith respect to the direction of flow of the laser beam.The pressure container houses a baffle partition for con-trolling the laser gas to flow past one of the main dis-charge electrodes and the preionizer while blocking thelaser gas from directly flowing to the other of the maindischarge electrodes and the preionizer.
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