Substance vaporizing apparatus

Abstract

A substance vaporizing apparatus which uses a vapor of a substance generated by heating the substance in a gas-filled tube as an exciting medium or an ionizing medium. The apparatus employs an improved container for containing the substance within the gas-filled tube. The improved container suppresses the rate of emission of the vapor of the substance into a discharge space defined by the gas-filled tube to hold the vapor density of the substance at an optimum low value for laser oscillation relative to the buffer gas density in the discharge space. Thus, the mean free path of the atoms of the substance, namely the average distance traveled by the atoms between elastic collisions with the electrons, ions and neutral atoms of the buffer gas, is increased to increase the number of atoms of the subtance excited to a higher energy level, which, consequently, increases laser power and enhances laser beam or ion beam accelerating energy. The employment of segmental discharge electrodes each consisting of a plurality of partial electrodes diametrically distributed in the discharge space of the gas-filled tube enables heating the buffer gas in a substantially uniform diametrical temperature distribution, which enables to increase the length and diameter of the laser medium. The employment of two pulse generating circuits promotes the relaxation of the atoms of the substance from a lower energy level to the ground energy level to enable the next application of a pulse voltage to establish a complete population inversion, which enables the substance vaporizing apparatus to operate at a high efficiency at a high discharge frequency.