Feedback timing control equipment and process for an injection seeded
modular gas discharge laser. A preferred embodiment is a system capable
of producing high quality pulsed laser beams at pulse rates of about
4,000 Hz or greater and at pulse energies of about 5 to 10 mJ or greater
for integrated outputs of about 20 to 40 Watts or greater. The feedback
timing control is programmed to permit in some circumstances discharges
timed so that no significant laser energy is output from the system. Use
of this technique permits burst mode operation in which the first
discharge of a burst is a no-output discharge so that timing parameters
for each of the two chambers can be monitored before the first laser
output pulse of the burst. Two separate discharge chambers are provided,
one of which is a part of a master oscillator producing a very narrow
band seed beam which is amplified in the second discharge chamber. The
chambers can be controlled separately permitting optimization of
wavelength parameters in the master oscillator and optimization of pulse
energy parameters in the amplifying chamber.