A study of an electron-beam excited atomic xenon laser at high energy loading

Author

Patterson, Edward L. ; Samlin, Gary E. ; Brannon, Paul J. ; Hurst, Michael J.

Author_Institution

Sandia Nat. Lab., Albuquerque, NM, USA

Volume

26

Issue

9

fYear

1990

fDate

9/1/1990 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1661

Lastpage

1667

Abstract

Operation of an electron-beam excited atomic xenon laser was investigated at pump rates between 40 W/cm³ and 1 kW/cm³ with pump times of 1 ms. Effects of cavity loss, gas mixture, and pump rate on laser performance were studied under selected conditions. The variation in laser power in 99.5% argon and 0.5% xenon selectively lasing at 1.73 or 2.6 μm was investigated as a function of pump power. It was found that the laser pulsewidth was shorter than the pump pulse and increased as the pump rate decreased, consistent with a temperature-induced effect. Lasing with broadband optics was investigated as the xenon concentration was varied and as helium or neon was combined with argon-xenon mixtures. Strong lasing was observed for xenon concentrations up to 20%. Addition of helium resulted in a slight increase in laser pulsewidth and caused lasing at 2.03 μm to increase at the expense of lasing at 1.73 and 2.6 μm

Keywords

gas lasers; spectral line breadth; thermo-optical effects; xenon; 1 ms; 1.73 micron; 2.03 micron; 2.6 micron; Ar-Xe; Ar-Xe-He; Ar-Xe-Ne; atomic Xe laser; broadband optics; cavity loss; electron-beam excited; gas mixture; high energy loading; laser performance; laser pulsewidth; pump rates; pump times; temperature-induced effect; Atom lasers; Atomic beams; Gas lasers; Helium; Laser excitation; Optical pulses; Performance loss; Pump lasers; Space vector pulse width modulation; Xenon;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.102646

Filename

102646