Ionic And Thermal Instability In Four-Component High-Power CO2 Electronic Discharge Convection Lasers (EDCL) Devices

In the present paper a general model of plasma instabilities in high-power e-beam sustained CO2 laser amplifiers is illustrated. This model improves the Haas-Nighan one by allowing explicitly for the various degrees of vibrational freedom and taking into account the stabilizing effect of the laser field intensity. The model has been used to test the degree of thermal and ionic instability of an EDCL device using four-component gas mixture(CO2:N2:He: CO).