APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR BALANCING COMBINED RF POWER-SUPPLIES FOR DRIVING A CO2 GAS-DISCHARGE LASER

摘要

Radio-frequency (RF) power supply apparatus (40) for supplying RF power to discharge electrodes (22, 24, 26) of a gas-discharge laser includes a plurality of amplifier modules (Al - A6) each having an RF output. A power combining arrangement (20) is provided for combin- ing the amplifier module RF- outputs into a single combined RF-output connected to the discharge electrodes (24, 26). A DC power supply (30) is connectable to or disconnectable from each of the transistor amplifier modules (Al - A6), separately, to allow current drawn by any of the amplifier modules (Al - A6) to be monitored by a single current sensor (CS1 -CS6).