XeCl laser operation with liquid chlorine donors: An experimental investigation on the gas composition

An experimental investigation on the performance of a spark preionized high energy XeCl laser operating with liquid chlorine donors is reported. Output energy of 70 mJ and 110 mJ has been achieved with CCl4 and SiCl4 respectively. In both cases the effective chlorine donor appears to be HCl synthetized by discharge-induced reactions during a preliminary run of discharges.