Gasentladungseinrichtung

High-voltage generators for loads containing electrical and capacitative components, in particular for lasers. High-voltage generators are provided with an alternating current power source to which electrodes are attached. Generators designed with semiconductors are based on circuit components used in power supplies. The a.c. voltage taken from the power supply network is rectified, filtered and chopped. The resulting voltage is then stepped up to the required value and applied to the gas discharge electrodes. The electrical load applied to the generator may only contain low capacitive components in parallel to its output. Therefore, complex circuits are needed for the gas discharge arrangement. In order to minimize the power dissipation in simple circuits with high capacitive components, an inductance is switched in parallel to the electrical load, said inductance forming together with the capacitive components the load of a resonant circuit to which energy is applied periodically via an auxiliary inductance. During oscillations, the resonant circuit transfers the energy to the gas discharge of the laser. The power dissipation of the switch, the auxiliary inductance and the resonant circuit is very low. The high-voltage generator is designed in particular for gas lasers.