Remote Atmospheric Lasing

Abstract

This paper considers a remote atmospheric lasing configuration which utilizes a combination of an ultrashort pulse laser to form a plasma filament (seed electrons) by tunneling ionization and a heater beam which thermalizes the seed electrons. The thermalized electrons collisionally excite the nitrogen molecules and induce lasing in the ultraviolet. The lasing gain is sufficiently high to reach saturation within the length of the plasma filament. A remotely generated ultraviolet source may have applications for standoff detection of biological and chemical agents.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 24, 2010
Accession Number
ADA536426

Entities

People

  • Bahman Hafizi
  • D. Gordon
  • Joseph R. Peñano
  • Marlan Scully
  • Phillip A. Sprangle

Organizations

  • United States Naval Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Lasing
  • Chemical Warfare Agents
  • Detection
  • Electron Density
  • Electrons
  • Excitation
  • Frequency
  • Intensity
  • Laser Pulses
  • Lasers
  • Military Research
  • Nitrogen
  • Nonlinear Optics
  • Optics
  • Physics
  • Radiation
  • Universities

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

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

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Directed Energy - Lasers
  • Microelectronics