Thallium Mercury Laser Development
Abstract
A short resonator (30 cm) CuBr laser was built and its performance measured as a function of various operating conditions. Aside from packaging and prime power considerations which were not addressed in this study, the CuBr laser has exceeded all minimum specifications for the Navy bathymetry application. One set of simultaneously obtained operating conditions are as follows: 140 microJoules per pulse, 4.5 ns laser pulse width, 16 kHz repetition rate, 0.15% efficiency, 525 C operating temperature. Our analysis indicates that in order to develop a Cu vapor laser for bathymetry application having an ultra- short laser pulse width (<5 nsec) the laser cavity has to be made shorter than or equal to 30 cm and the excitation rate has to be very high. Further issues relating to other bathymetry laser requirements such as energy per pulse, efficiency, repetition rate, lifetime, compactness, ruggedness and portability have been easily achieved by our existing laser tube.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1981
- Accession Number
- ADA100592
Entities
People
- C. S. Liu
- D. W. Feldman