Efficiency of utilization of certain readily ionized substances for discharge stabilization in CO2 lasers

An investigation was made of the use of some alkyl amine substances with ionization potentials from 7.14 to 8.24 eV as readily ionized additives to stabilize the discharge in an ultravioletpreionized CO₂ laser. The main attention was devoted to the processes resulting from the Penning ionization of the additives in a self-sustained discharge. It was established that the magnitude of the effect associated with ionization of the additives by the Penning process increases on decrease in the ionization potential φ of the substance in the range 7.6 < φ ≤ 8.24 eV, and is independent of φ when φ < 7.6 eV. The best output energy results were obtained using tri-n-propylamine and triethylamine.