Proof of the Feasibility of Coherent and Incoherent Schemes for Pumping a Gamma-Ray Laser
Abstract
Recent approaches to the problem of the gamma-ray laser have focused upon upconversion techniques in which metastable nuclei are pumped with long wavelength radiation. At the nuclear level the storage of energy on approach teraJoules per liter for thousands of years. This report focuses upon the nuclear analog of the optical double resonance method which produced much of the database at the molecular level that was of such essential use in the development of conventional lasers. Applied most recently to the study of levels which might be used in dumping isomeric populations into freely radiating states, it produced an unexpected result of major importance. In several test isotopes, a class of extremely useful states was discovered that could radiatively couple to both normal and isomeric states of a nucleus spanning large changes of angular momentum. Demonstrated was the excitation of populations of the second of the 29 actual candidates for a gamma-ray laser. Another of the less attractive of the 29 isomers because of a large change in angular momentum of 5 h, 123Te superscript m was one of the few which had both a radioactive signature sufficiently distinctive for detection and a stable ground state from which to fabricate a target.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1988
- Accession Number
- ADA197333
Entities
People
- Carl B. Collins
Organizations
- University of Texas at Dallas