Abstract
Measurements of the discharge V-I characteristics of a pulsed HF laser initiated by a Blumlein circuit indicate that the discharge is attachment dominated operating at a reduced field magnitude E/N constant with the normalised current density J/N. A simple model of the combined circuit-discharge network is developed which is capable of accurately describing the pressure dependence of peak current and discharge resistance and the conditions to be verified for an efficient energy transfer into the laser plasma. Experimental results are given that strongly support the model used for the analysis, which therefore should prove useful in the design and optimisation of current-pulse generation networks.