The Nitrogen Ion Laser

Abstract

The characterization and thermal scaling of the nitrogen ion laser pumped by charge transfer from He(3+) is reported in this work. Intense laser emission in the violet at 427 nm has been observed and found to have a linewidth less than 0.3 A. The pumping ion, HE(3+), was produced by discharge of a fast- pulsed electron beam gun, APEX-1, into several atmospheres of a mixture of helium and nitrogen. Excitation current densities ranged from 1.1 to 2.5 sq cm at 1 MV over a 1 x 10 cm transverse geometry. Thermal scaling of the laser has been investigated and a strong inverse dependence of laser output on gas temperature was observed. Quasi-cw operation was achieved under these conditions suggesting that much longer output pulses might be obtained with an e-beam pulse of greater duration.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 31, 1975
Accession Number
ADA022044

Entities

People

  • Carl B. Collins

Organizations

  • University of Texas at Dallas

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Charge Transfer
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Electron Beams
  • Electronic States
  • Electrons
  • Equations
  • High Pressure
  • Ion Lasers
  • Ionization
  • Laser Beams
  • Laser Pulses
  • Laser Resonators
  • Lasers
  • Measurement
  • Military Research
  • Partial Pressure
  • Pressure Vessels

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Molecular Photonics/Laser Physics
  • Pulsed Power and Plasma Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Directed Energy - Lasers
  • Microelectronics