Stabilization of a gas filling in a miniature sealed carbon dioxide laser

It was found experimentally that the service life of a miniature sealed CO₂ laser with a gas-discharge tube of ~5 cm³ volume could exceed 1000 h. The proposed construction and procedure for cathode conditioning ensured the absence of any fall in the output power throughout the life tests. The presence of nitrogen, included in the mixture to increase the output power per unit length, did not reduce the service life.