A pulsed iodine laser driven by a chemical oxygen generator was developed. The energy deposition on I(2P3/2) was made by a high‐pressure pulsed O2(a1&Dgr;g) generator. Although this scheme is the same as the conventional chemically pumped oxygen‐iodine laser (COIL), it is unique in that the pulsed laser was extracted by the high‐energy density pulsed pumping scheme. The pulse energy obtained was 1.34 J, the pulse width was 1.5 ms, and the peak power was 900 W. The specific energy was estimated to be 3.6 J/l.