A nitrogen laser employing an electron seeding technique

Electron‐beam injection was utilized in this nitrogen laser to preionize the lasing gas. Data taken from the same laser operated with and without electron seeding are compared under the same condition. It is demonstrated that electron seeding can (a) increase the laser power because the optimum lasing pressure is shifted to a higher value, (b) extend the laser action to a much higher gas pressure, (c) reduce the output power fluctuation, and (d) extend the range of validity of a linear gas‐pressure–laser‐power scaling law.