Laser bottlenecking technique
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy
InventorJ. Gary Eden
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Abstract
A technique for lasing a gas in a gas lasing device to obtain stimulated light emission at a desired wavelength by bottlenecking the high gain transitions in the gas so that certain low gain transitions which will yield the desired wavelength are now able to oscillate. This technique comprises the steps of optimizing the mirror transmission for the desired light frequency, and pumping the laser gas with a pulse whose width is much longer than that required to bottleneck the high gain transitions. This technique may be utilized with both molecular and atomic gases.
Claims18
A technique for causing a gas lasing device including an optical cavity having a plurality of reflecting surfaces to strongly lase a gas in a gas chamber from a desired vibrational level in an upper populated electronic energy state, to a lower electronic energy state via a low probability optical transition in order to obtain a desired frequency of stimulated light emission comprising the steps of:
- choosing the reflecting surface at one end of said lasing device to have a maximum transmission characteristic for the desired light frequency;
- introducing a lasing gas having an upper electronic energy state with a desired vibrational level and a lower electronic energy state with a plurality of levels therein such that there are a plurality of potential lasing transitions between said desired vibrational level of said upper energy state and said lower energy state, with some of these transitions being high gain transitions and with some of these transitions being lower gain transitions, there being a specific energy required to bottleneck these high gain transitions;
- pumping said lasing gas with an energy pulse of sufficient power density to cause lasing of the high gain transitions during the initial portion thereof with the width of the energy pulse extending significantly beyond this initial high gain transition lasing point in order to bottleneck these high gain transitions and thereby allow the lower gain transitions to oscillate.
A technique for lasing a gas having an upper electronic energy state and a lower electronic energy state, said lower state having a plurality of levels therein such that there are a plurality of potential lasing transitions between said upper energy state and said levels of said lower energy state with some of these transitions being high gain transitions and some being lower gain transitions and with at least one of these lower gain transitions being a desired low gain transition, said gas being contained in a gas chamber of a gas lasing device to obtain a stimulated light emission at a desired wavelength by causing said desired low gain or low probability transition to lase in the gas comprising the step of bottlenecking the higher gain transitions in the gas such that this desired low gain transition is now able to lase.
A gas laser for obtaining stimulated light emission at a desired wavelength by causing low probability optical transitions within a laser gas to oscillate comprising:
- a gas to be lased having an upper electronic energy state and a lower electronic energy state, said lower state having a plurality of levels therein such that there are a plurality of potential lasing transitions between said upper energy state and said levels of said lower energy state with some of these transitions being high gain transitions and some being lower gain transitions and with at least one lower gain transition being a desired low gain transition, with a specific energy required in order to bottleneck the laser transitions with higher gains than said desired low gain transition;
- a resonant cavity including a particle reflecting surface for abstracting lasing emissions;
- a gas chamber disposed in said resonant cavity for containing said gas to be lased and adapted to be pumped with energy;
- means adapted for generating a weak energy discharge within said gas chamber in order to reduce the energy required to bottleneck high gain laser transitions in the gas;
- and
- pumping means for pumping said lasing gas after said weak energy discharge with a pulse of sufficient length to complete the bottlenecking of the high gain laser transitions and to initiate the desired low gain transition.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.