Experimental study of discharge for 200W RF excited slab lasers

An 81 MHz TEM electromagnetic wave transmitting between the electrodes would cause the nonuniform discharge along the electrodes. The variation of the voltage distribution with pressure and feed-in power bring difficulties to design match network. In order to achieve impedance matching,in the 2000W RF slab discharge platform the different type of matching network are used. Through analyzing the matching network, the equivalent electrical parameter is estimated. In the experiment, though using resonance inductances the voltage distribution along the electrodes is improved. The results show that under the typical condition of the RF slab laser operation, the π matching network can work well and the reflective power is less than 5%. When a mid-feed point is used, the feed-in power is 2000W, two 28nH inductances are attached at both end of the electrodes, two 24nH inductances are fixed on both points of one-fourth of the electrodes, the uniform discharge is got on the 500mm×40mm electrodes, and the feed-in power density is 65W/cm.