Characteristics of SF6 discharge in nonchain HF laser

Both electrical discharge waveforms and pictures recorded by multi-frame camera at different times are used to study the SF6 discharge characteristics in HF laser. The experimental results indicate that the discharge process can be divided into three stages as main discharge, residual voltage maintenance and arc discharge. In the main discharge stage, uniform volume discharge occurs and the energy stored in the capacitors deposits mainly in the discharge plasma. In the residual voltage maintenance stage, no evident discharge is observed. In the arc discharge stage, the residual energy is dissipated through arc. The dependency of energy deposition efficiency and residual voltage on charge voltage is obtained by analyzing the discharge waveforms. With charging voltage increasing, t