Xenon Ion Laser Research Articles

Comments on the identification of some xenon ion laser lines

Earlier measurements and level assignments made by the authors for some xenon ion laser lines are reevaluated in light of recent work by Gallardo and coworkers. The lines affected are the 5260.17-, 5260.43-, 4305.75-, and 3759.94-Å lines in xenon and 4647.40- and 4650.22-Å lines attributed to carbon.

Committee 1: Standards of Wavelength

Experiments on Lamb-dip stabilization of the 6328 Å He-Ne laser line made at NBS, NPL and PTB and reported in a joint paper (10) show that the wavelength from different lasers may differ by as much as one part in 107. Similar work on a C02 laser line at 10.6 μm and a xenon line at 3.5 μm is reported from NPL, the 1.15 μm line in a pure Ne 20 laser has been investigated at JILA (5), and several lines in a xenon ion laser are being studied at PTB. However, the method that holds the greatest promise of accuracy and stability is the use of saturated absorption to lock a laser wavelength to some molecular transition having a sharply defined and stable wavelength. Thus the 6328 Å He-Ne laser line can be fixed on a line in the molecule 127I2 (6, 7), and the 3.3913 μm line of a He-Ne laser has been connected to a line of CH4, promising a unique precision and stability according to experiments made at JILA (5) and NRC. This technique will evidently yield excellent substitutes for the Kr 86 line, and may, when the time is ripe, lead to the adoption of an improved primary standard.

High-Power output at 5353 Å from a pulsed xenon ion laser

High-Power output at 5353 Å from a pulsed xenon ion laser