Influence of impurities and of pump power on the operational characteristics of a high-pressure He — Cd laser

An experimental investigation was made of a high-pressure He — Cd laser excited by electron-beam pulses of nanosecond and microsecond durations. The lasing characteristics were determined as a function of the pump power and of the composition of the gaseous mixture. The attention was concentrated on stimulated emission at λ = 325 nm. The lowest threshold for lasing at this wavelength did not exceed 10 W cm^–3 and the specific output power was 50, 35, and 10 mW cm^–3 when the duration of the output radiation pulses was 40 ns, 2 μs, and 7 μs, respectively.