Modeling of the self-sustained, discharge-excited xenon-chloride laser

A kinetic model for the self-sustained, discharge-excited XeCl laser with Ne-Xe-HCI gas mixtures is described. The improvements include an improved treatment of the HCl vibrational kinetics and a detailed treatment of the XeCl excited-state manifold, and as a result the predictions of the model are in good agreement with several experiments covering a wide range of excitation conditions. Scaling investigations suggest that large improvements in the efficiency of self-sustained, discharge-excited XeCl lasers are not to be expected; however, the model predicts that efficient operation over pulse lengths of several microseconds may be possible if the present difficulties with discharge stability can be overcome