Abstract
We developed a longitudinally excited CO2 laser without a discharge switch and installed a fast highvoltage
solid state switch that consists of a series of connected MOSFETs to a longitudinally excited
CO2 laser as a spiker for sustaining the discharge. Laser oscillation was successfully achieved at a spiker
voltage of 5 kV with a rise time of 40 ns. Several mJs of laser energy were stably obtained.
