Coupled gas discharge and pulse circuit analysis

Two examples of the importance of accurate coupling of driving electric circuits to discharge models, when simulating fast pulse discharges, are presented. The first example uses a commercial electric field analysis code, TETRAelf, to simulate a pulsed discharge TEA CO₂ laser and demonstrates the value of including displacement current effects in the modeling of the avalanche phase of the discharge. The second example uses a commercial electric circuit analysis package, ECA, to simulate a three-electrode long-pulse, 2-J, XeCl excimer laser. Both the saturable magnetic cores and the discharge kinetics are included in the simulation. Comparisons are made between the numerical results and experimental data