Repetitively pulsed operating regime of a high-pressure atomic xenon transition laser

Abstract

The repetitively pulsed regime of an atomic xenon transition laser pumped by an electron beam with various pulse durations and an electron-beam-initiated discharge is studied experimentally. An average radiation power of 2.5 W has been achieved in a quasi-stationary regime for a pulse repetition rate of 5 Hz in a laser pumped by a radially convergent electron beam of duration 100 μs without circulation of the Ar — Xe working mixture. The average output power for a laser pumped by a planar electron beam in quasi-stationary regime is 2 W. It is shown that for a specific energy contribution not exceeding 50 J L-1 and laser excitation by a train of electron-beam pulses at a repetition rate of 50 Hz, the amplitude and duration of the second lasing pulse virtually coincide with those of the first. For a laser pumped by a discharge initiated by a nanosecond electron beam, an average lasing power of 380 mW is achieved under steady-state conditions upon transverse circulation of the working mixture and a pump pulse repetition rate of 25 Hz. Pumping by an electron beam from two accelerators with a pulse duration of a few tens of microseconds under an Ar — Xe mixture pressure of about 1 atm and a specific pump power of 1 — 3 kW cm-3 per pulse is proposed for the development of 1.73-μm repetitively pulsed Xe lasers with a high average output power.