HIGH-EFFICIENCY OPERATION OF A GAS-DISCHARGE XECL LASER USING A MAGNETICALLY INDUCED RESONANT VOLTAGE OVERSHOOT CIRCUIT

An electrical to optical efficiency of 5% has been demonstrated in an x-ray preionized XeCl discharge laser using an improved prepulse-mainpulse circuit, based on resonant charging of the peaking capacitor. In contrast to known prepulse-mainpulse circuits, the new scheme has no time delay between prepulse and mainpulse nor a voltage reversal on the electrodes. We present three possible configurations of the scheme and one of them has been realized for demonstrating its high-efficiency capabilities.