Abstract

We recently developed a high-pressure transverse-discharge copper-vapor laser (TD-CVL) using a fast flat-plate Blumlein pulse-forming circuit. It was demonstrated with the system that a specific laser energy density of more than 50 μJ/cm³ can be generated.^1-3 Also, it was demonstrated that in a TD-CVL high buffer gas pressure up to an atmosphere can be used because of the high E/(Nn)^1/2 that can be achieved. Here E is the electric field in the discharge laser cell, N is the buffer gas number density, and n is the copper vapor density.

© 1988 Optical Society of America