Surface plasma preionization produced on a specially patterned PCB and its application in a pulsed CO2 laser

The performance of an atmospheric pressure pulsed carbon dioxide laser employing surface plasma preionization, produced on a specially patterned printed circuit board (PCB), is reported. The surface plasma is formed due to many tiny plasma channels produced in millimeter sized open circular gaps, made by lithography on one side of PCB. The preionizing plasma is mostly consisted of corona or glow stage and transition to spark one hardly occurs. This type of preionization allows a maximum of 220 J/l energy deposition into the main plasma, while up scaling is yet possible by more optimization of PCB and the pattern. The laser output energy of 1.2 J per pulse with overall efficiency of 7% has been obtained with gas mixture of He:CO2:N2=3:1:1. This type of surface plasma preionization is specifically appropriate for very large volumes and high pressures, where the conventional UV emitting preionizations like spark arrays or corona are not effective.