Abstract
The present paper reports an experimental technique for enhancing a high‐pressure discharge in a CO2 TEA laser for increasing its output power by using uv irradiation from a series of third needle‐plane electrodes, an uv mirror, and an easily ionized gas additive. Laser output energy of 6 J and output peak power of 40 MW at an efficiency of 19% has been obtained in an initial demonstration. Experimentally, it was found that the best results on the laser output radiation were obtained with tri‐n‐propylamine at a partial pressure of about 0.35 Torr and with p‐xylene at a partial pressure of about 0.7 Torr.