Effect of rare-gas diluents on the performance of an XeCl laser pumped by a high-intensity electron beam

The effect of various rare-gas diluents on the operating parameters of the XeCl laser has been investigated. The laser was electron-beam pumped at an excitation rate of ≊3 MW/cm3 and a pulse duration of 50 nsec. Contrary to previous results we found that the intrinsic efficiency, small-signal gain, and absorption were independent of the rare-gas diluent. The intrinsic efficiency was ≊ 4%, the small-signal gain was 0.18 cm−1, and the absorption coefficient was between 0.04 and 0.05 cm−1. A saturation intensity of 3 MW/cm2 was obtained from a modified Rigrod analysis of the data.