RF inductively excited ion laser with aperture-magnetic confinement

In the high-current-density discharges characteristic of gaseous ion lasers, charged particle losses to the discharge tube walls account for an estimated 80 percent of the total losses, and are a major source of material problems. Attempts to reduce these wall losses drastically by magnetic confinement in dc lasers are limited by increased ion drift and gas pumping effects. These effects occur in dc discharges, and are accentuated when wall losses are greatly reduced. Because of the alternating nature of the discharge, these effects are absent in the inductively coupled RF-excited toroidal argon laser described here, where a strong axial magnetic field confines the high-current-density discharge between widely spaced graphite apertures. This scheme seeks to reduce wall losses to a significantly greater extent than can be usefully done with a similar dc discharge.