Plasma pump sources for lasers

A review is given of investigations of the physics of high-current pulsed discharges. The idea of employing these for the optical pumping of lasers was advanced by N. G. Basov in the mid sixties. High-power optical radiation in a broad band of wavelengths (up to the far vacuum ultraviolet) is used for pumping lasers, including the high-power lasers employed for thermonuclear investigations, for studies in photochemistry and of the interaction of radiation with matter, and in the physics of shock waves and heat waves.