Modeling the self‐sustained discharge‐excited XeCl laser in two dimensions

A new two‐dimensional model for transverse discharge‐excited gas lasers is described. The model can compute accurate electric fields for complex geometries. This facility is exploited to investigate the effect of the discharge electrode profile on XeCl laser performance. It is found that any of the stock electrode designs is satisfactory for high‐efficiency lasers with excitation pulses lasting for up to 200 ns. For longer‐pulse lasers, the pulse length and energy output are sensitive to the choice of electrode and there are grounds for preferring the Stappaerts profile over the other available designs.

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