Re: Nitrogen laser power level and gas mixture

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Nitrogen laser power level and gas mixture
From: Mike Nolley <mnolley-at-mail.slc.edu> (by way of Terry Fritz <terryf-at-verinet-dot-com>)
Date: Sun, 08 Nov 1998 11:12:44 -0700
Approved: terryf-at-verinet-dot-com

An N2 laser will most certainly not be able to ionize the gap enough, at
least one withing our power capabilities.  Conventional Blumelein N2
lasers, because the firing time is in the 10 ns range, can consume only a
certain amount of power-- the power is governed by the length of the
discharge cavity and the speed of discharge, not the input current.  If you
wanted to properly ionize a gap with an N2 laser- it would have to be
enormous, and might require optics to properly focus the beam.  Also, the
repetition rates for home-built N2 lasers are fairly low-- although I'm not
sure that this can't be overcome.
	Building a giant-size N2 laser might be worthwhile though, if for no other
reason than that it doesn't seem to have been done before... Because N2
lasers are super-radiant the construction isn't terribly difficult.
			Good luck!
					Mike