Plasma instability in ion lasers

Theoretical and experimental investigations were made of instabilities in high-current discharges excited in high-power ion-laser plasmas. It was established that the ion-acoustic instability makes an essential contribution to the general picture of the instabilities. A method was demonstrated for suppressing the discharge instabilities in an argon-laser plasma by inducing a supersonic transverse flow of the active medium, and this resulted in a sharp rise in the laser output power.