Theoretical investigation of the shape of pulses from an electron-beam-controlled CO laser

A theoretical investigation was made of the dependences of the shape of emission pulses from a CO laser on the rates of elementary processes occurring in its active medium. It was found that the lasing enhancement following the end of a discharge, observed experimentally under certain excitation conditions, is determined by the ratio of the pumping and vibrational-vibrational (VV) exchange rates. Good agreement was obtained with experiment. It was concluded that the rates normally employed in the calculations for the VV exchange between CO molecules represent a fourfold or fivefold overestimate.