Efficient self-sustained pulsed CO laser

In this paper a simple sealed-off TEA CO laser is described with a self-sustained discharge without an external UV preionization source. At 77 K this system yields more than 600 mJ from a lasing volume of about 60 cm3 CO-N2-He mixture (45 J/ℓ atm. with 15.6% efficiency)

Construction and operation of high power gas lasers

In the present paper some typical gas laser construction and their performances will be described. Aspects of transition selective systems and high pressure operation will be treated

A KrF-laser excited by a capacitively coupled longitudinal discharge

The performance of a KrF excimer laser, excited by a discharge produced in a quartz tube between two metallic electrodes at its end and the inner tube wall serving as a dielectric electrode, is described. The dielectric electrode is capacitively coupled to a metallic electrode surrounding the quartz tube coaxially. Laser output energies up to 0.9 mJ in pulses having a duration of 6 ns FWHM could be obtained at a driving voltage of 100 kV

Tunable sealed-off CW CO laser at room temperature

Starting from a sealed-off CO laser with a long-life output of 29 W/m in multiline operation, we developed a tunable version of this device. The system described has a discharge length of 97 cm. It was made transition-selective by using a three-mirror configuration. In this way we were able to tune the laser to more than 70 oscillating vibrational-rotational transitions of the CO molecule

Near infrared lasing transitions in Ar, Kr, and Xe atoms pumped by a coaxial e-beam

Optimizations of gas composition and input energy were performed for gas mixtures containing a buffer gas and either Ar, Kr or Xe as the lasing gas. The total gas pressure was varied between 1 and 14 bar and the input energy from 0.03 to 0.7 J/cm3. The excitation source was a small coaxial electron beam with a pumping length of 20 cm and a pulse length of 30 ns (FWHM). From an active volume of 13.3 cm3 a maximum output energy of 12 mJ was obtained from a gas mixture containing 0.3% Xe in Ar at a total gas pressure of 10 bar. The intrinsic efficiency was 0.9%

Laser gain measurements at 193 nm in a small discharge cell containing ArF excimer laser gas mixtures

Spatial and temporal gain profiles as well as the peak net gain at 193 nm have been measured in X-ray preionized discharges excited by a single pulse electrical system working in the charge transfer mode. Ar- and F2-containing laser gas mixtures with He or Ne as a buffer gas have been used. With a pumping pulse duration of ~ 100 ns (FWHM) and a specific peak power deposition of ~ 1 MW cm-3 bar-1 in a gas mixture containing F2 : Ar : He (0.1%:5%:94.9%), at 2 bar total pressure, a very high peak net gain coefficient of ~30% cm-1 was measured in the gas discharge. The FWHM of the gain waveform was ~ 60 n

IR Recombination Lasers

The present study contributes to a better understanding of the atomic Xe laser as a powerful IR source. Several important phenomena like the dependence of both the observed optimized input power and maximum output power on the square of the gas density and also the constant fractional ionization are reported and verified theoretically. The insight in the kinetics of this system has also lead to the realization of small-size continuous systems with output powers in the range of watts. The results of the present study can be used to predict the performance of the atomic Xe laser under different operating conditions

Fast Thermo-reflectance Bolometry

We present a new approach to bolometry based on the measurement of the optical reflectivity change of a thin metal layer deposited on a transparent substrate. The reflectivity change of the metal layer results from the temperature rise due to absorption of energetic particles or X-rays. With this spectrally broadband and fast technique measurements of absolute energy fluxes are possible. Contact-less sensing makes this method well suited for measurements in an environment with a strong electro-magnetic noise.\ud The technique was applied to characterize a newly developed method for the generation of electron beams in dense gases. A very high efficiency for the e-beam generation, approaching 100%, was measured for the first time