Some experimental results obtained for a gasdynamic CO$_2$ laser

The results are given of preliminary experiments carried out on a gasdynamic CO$_2$ laser in which an N$_2$–CO$_2$–He working mixture of gases was heated in a plasmotron. A specific output energy 20 J/g and an efficiency $\sim$ 1.2 % were obtained for cw operation when the initial gas temperature was $T_0=1700\pm100$ $^\circ$ K, the parameter $p_0 h^*$ had the value $\lesssim0.5$ atm-cm, and the total flow rate of the gaseous mixture was $\sim$ 0.5 kg/sec.