Efficient XeCl(B) formation in an electron-beam assisted Xe/HCl laser discharge

Abstract

XeCl(B) formation processes are examined for conditions typical of a discharge‐excited laser using HCl as the chlorine donor. It is shown that vibrational excitation of HCl followed by dissociative attachment is a primary step in the reaction sequence resulting in Cl⁻ . XeCl(B) formation is the result of a three‐body Xe⁺ ‐CL⁻ recombination reaction. Experimental results are presented which demonstrate efficient (∼2%) XeCl laser operation in an e‐beam assisted discharge in which over 75% of the energy was deposited by the discharge.