Multipulse copper iodide laser at high repetition rates

An all-hot copper iodide laser is described which operates at pulse repetition rates up to 18 kHz. Laser emission occurs from the 5106 Å (4p ²P_3/2 → ⁴s^{2 2}D_5/2) and 5782 Å (4p ²p_1/2 → 49^{2 2}D_3/2) transitions in atomic copper. Near the optimum pulse repetition rate of 6 kHz, Laser output energies of 60 μJ per pulse were measured in a burst mode from a 2.0 cm³ discharge volume. This corresponds to 0.18 W cm^-3 quasi-continuous laser emission from the discharge tube.