Abstract

Optically pumped rare gas lasers are being investigated as potential high-energy, high beam quality systems. The lasing medium consists of rare gas atoms ($\mathrm{Rg}=\mathrm{Ne}$, Ar, Kr, or Xe) that have been electric discharge excited to the metastable $n{p}^5(n+1)s{{}^{3}P}_2$ state. Following optical excitation, helium (He) at pressures of 200–1000 Torr is used as the energy transfer agent to create a population inversion. The primary technical difficulty for this scheme is the discharge production of sufficient $\mathrm{Rg}*$ metastables in the presence of $>200\mathrm{Torr}$ of He. In this Letter, we describe a pulsed discharge that yields $>{10}^{13}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}\mathrm{Ar}*$ in the presence of He at total pressures up to 750 Torr. Using this discharge, a diode-pumped $\mathrm{Ar}*$ laser providing 4.1 W has been demonstrated.

© 2017 Optical Society of America

Demonstration of a diode-pumped metastable Ar laser

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Time-dependent simulations of a CW pumped, pulsed DC discharge Ar metastable laser system

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Gain and lasing of optically pumped metastable rare gas atoms

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Kinetics of optically pumped Kr metastables

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