High-pressure pulsed CO2 laser

Coherent emission was obtained from a CO2 laser containing a gas mixture at a pressure of ~15 atm. The active medium was excited with an electric field and by electron bombardment. The duration of the coherent emission pulses was ~200 nsec. The active region was ~4 cm long, the electron-beam current density was ~50 A/cm2, the electron energy was ~1.2 MeV, and the laser threshold was ~50 kV/cm.