Establishment of a steady-state power level in a pulse-periodic excimer laser

An experimental investigation was made of the time dependence of the output power of a pulseperiodic excimer laser at different pulse repetition frequencies. It was established that a reduction in the output energy per pulse to a certain value occurs in 10–20 pulses and is a function of a number of conditions. The observed behavior is explained by the appearance of acoustic waves in the gasdynamic loop and by nature of their mutual interaction.