SOVIET APPROACH TO E-BEAM PUMPING.

In a gasdischarge laser, the electrons play a double role: they participate in the gas conductivity and, by direct ionization, they produce conductivity. In the electro-ionization (elion) method, these functions are separated to eliminate many of the difficulties of gasdischarge pumping in high-pressure lasers. It then becomes possible to obtain both maximum efficiency and an even excitation without arcing. From experiments with transversely excited, atmospheric-pressure (tea) lasers, the author claims that it has been concluded that increasing pressure up to tens of atmospheres does not qualitatively change the fundamental excitation processes. The excitation kinetics of the working levels at high pressures correspond directly to kinetic processes at low pressures. With a sufficiently short excitation pulse, the laser power per unit volume increases quadratically with pressure. Increasing the working-gas pressure a thousandfold resulted in an increase of laser power density a millionfold.