The results of comprehensive investigations of a compact UV-preionized XeCl laser are presented. It has been shown that the gas lifetime increased to more than three times if BCl3 was used as a halogen donor instead of HCl. The analysis of chemical degradation products suggests the possibility of a 'self-regeneration' of BCl3-containing gas mixtures, where volatile contaminants can be converted into solid products. The temporal and spatial dependences of the densities for several plasma components: Ne*, Xe*, Xe+*, Cl-, XeCl* and boron atoms were measured by the dye laser absorption (gain) probing. The halogen donor depletion in volume and constricted phases of the discharge was traced by the temporal dependence of the ground-state boron atoms density. The evolution of filamentary instabilities in the discharge was monitored from the Stark broadening of Xe* absorption lines.
|