Fermi and intramode relaxation phenomena in CO sub(2) lasers

Using a 1 ns pulse from a short-pulse CO sub(2) laser system, the evolution of the gain in a TEA system was studied during and after amplification. This resulted in a very direct observation of a few relaxation processes. The authors estimated the effective intramode relaxation rate constant to be larger than 6 x 10 super(6) torr super(-1)/s. The Fermi relaxation time constant was found to be 30 plus or minus 7 ns at 760 torr. They conclude that for nanosecond pulse amplification, intramode relaxation cannot be neglected.