Investigation of the operating characteristics of the 3.5 µ xenon laser

Amplification at 3.508 μ in pure xenon dc-excited discharges has been measured over a wide range of gas pressures and for several discharge diameters. For pressures greater than 10 mTorr, the unsaturated gain increases monotonically as the pressure decreases. Gain varies inversely as the radius for large bore (radius ≥ 3.5 mm) amplifers, but a complicated, pressure-dependent variation between gain and discharge diameter was observed in amplifiers of less than 3-mm diameter. Gain saturation occurs at low Signal levels and results in small output powers from conventional xenon lasers.