Gain measurements on uniformly excited HF/DF TEA lasers

The gain of a uniformly excited HF/DF TEA laser was measured to be 76 dB/m for HF and 39 dB/m for DF. The gain is followed by an absorption which decays with10-50 time constants attributed to V-T and V-R relaxation processes, Limited measurements on the HCl system show similar absorption that persists for about 50 ms, limiting the pulse repetition rate.