Kinetics of stimulated emission of excimer radiation from inert gases in a nonself-sustained electric discharge

A kinetic equation is solved to determine the distribution of the electric discharge power between elastic and inelastic electron collisions in argon, krypton, and xenon. The kinetics of the excimer emission is studied for krypton allowing for the processes of deactivation. An expression is derived for the growth time of a step-ionization instability which is found to be inversely proportional to the square root of the power supplied to the discharge. The maximum efficiencies and gain factors are found for inert-gas excimer lasers.