Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Akira Moriguchi

Shinji Kobayashi

Takaaki Murata

Kiyohisa Terai

Hirokatsu Suzuki

Tohru Tamagawa

A gas laser device, including an a.c. power source for generating a.c. output voltage and a pair of electrodes positioned sandwiching discharge gap through which laser gas circulates. The pair of electrodes are connected to the a.c. power source for applying the a.c. voltage across the electrodes to achieve discharge in the discharge gap such as to create a positive column region and boundary layer regions, thereby to generate laser light. The positive column region is created in the discharge gap and a.c. power injected therein contributes to laser excitation. The boundary layer regions is created in a vicinity of one of the pair of electrodes, respectively and a.c. power injected therein does not contribute to laser excitation. A frequency of the a.c. power source is set to at least 700 kHz and an a.c. output voltage of the a.c. power source is set at a level such that a voltage in the positive column region is larger than a burden voltage in the boundary layer regions. In the gas laser device, it may be set that a dimension d between the pair of electrodes and a pressure p of the laser gas in the relationship of the following formula (A)

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Mie, Japan

Akira Moriguchi