Operating characteristics of TE copper bromide lasers

Detailed operating characteristics of transversely excited (TE) double-pulse copper bromide lasers employing discharge stabilization techniques are reported. With careful optimization of operating temperature, buffer gas pressure, dissociation and excitation energies, and pulse delay times, specific output energies up to 35μJ/cm³have been obtained for a device of active volume 150 cm³. The nature of the dominant processes influencing ground state and metastable copper atom densities in the interpulse region are discussed in terms of the observed effects of temperature and gas pressure on the characteristic delay times.