Improvement of the monochromaticity of the output radiation of an HCN laser

An investigation was made of the influence of an admixture of CO on the operation of an HCN laser emitting at λ = 336 μ. This admixture reduced the discharge current to 0.18 A and increased the efficiency at least three-fold. The addition of CO reduced the width of the emission line by more one order of magnitude. A mechanism of the influence of CO on the population inversion of the active levels of HCN was proposed. The experimental results were used to build an HCN laser working effectively under high-frequency discharge condition. The short-term stability of a high-frequency-discharge HCN laser did not exceed 10^–10.