High-pressure infrared Ar-Xe laser system: Ionizer-sustainer mode of excitation

Abstract

Laser action on neutral Xe transitions has been achieved at 1‐atm pressure in Ar‐Xe and He‐Xe mixtures excited in an ionizer‐sustainer mode of discharge. A number of near‐infrared lines oscillated in both mixtures with the strongest at 1.73 μm in Ar‐Xe. Over‐all conversion efficiencies of 0.2% in He‐Xe and 1% in Ar‐Xe were obtained with resulting output powers of 100–200 kW. These represent an order‐of‐magnitude increase in power, energy per pulse, and efficiency over previously reported observations on conventional transverse discharge lasers.