Control of an XeCl laser by an external signal of less than 2 W/cm2 intensity

An investigation was made of the conditions under which control was possible of a narrowband XeCl laser with injection locking when the duration of the output pulses of this laser was 60 nsec and the duration of an external signal was 15 nsec. A definition of the efficiency of injection locking of an XeCl laser was introduced. It was found that this efficiency reached 95% when the intensity of the external control signal was ~2 W/cm², but the efficiency fell to zero when the intensity was 7 mW/cm². The output power of the laser exceeded 100 kW and the divergence was within 0.15 mrad when the spectral line width was 5 pm.