Temperature Dependent Rubidium-Helium Line Shapes and Fine Structure Mixing Rates

Abstract

Diode Pumped Alkali Lasers (DPALs) are a new type of laser that uses alkali metal vapor as a gain medium and a bu er gas to control the line shape and kinetics. While these systems were first demonstrated in 2003 [48] they have just recently been scaled to the kilowatt power levels in 2012 [18]. To achieve these powers, the design of the gain cell relied on a set of incomplete line shape and kinetic data. The current focus areas of DPAL research are the continued power scaling of the systems and basic science research into the rates involved within the system. The purpose of this research is to determine the physical parameters of various alkalinoble gas interactions with a high degree of accuracy. The physical parameters of interest here include pressure broadening (), pressure shift ( ), asymmetry ( 0), the quenching rates (k20, k10), and spin-orbit (SO) mixing rates (k12, k21). Various measurements of these line shape parameters and the rates associated with these systems have been taken over the years at low temperatures and usually low pressures. Temperatures of the measurements range from 320 K [39] to 394 K [68] with pressures of 300 Torr [68]. Various theories including the semi-classical approach of Anderson Talman [4, 43] and the full quantum mechanical treatment of Baranger [7] can be used to predict line shape parameters provided that the interaction potentials, are well known.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 17, 2015
Accession Number
ADA623524

Entities

People

  • Wooddy S. Miller

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Alkali Metals
  • Control Systems
  • Energy Levels
  • Energy Transfer
  • Equations Of State
  • Ground State
  • Laser Beams
  • Lasers
  • Lepidoptera
  • Light Sources
  • Measurement
  • Optical Properties
  • Physical Properties
  • Pressure Measurement
  • Quantum Properties
  • Temperature Control

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Molecular Photonics/Laser Physics
  • Optical Physics and Photonics.
  • Regression Analysis.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Directed Energy - Lasers
  • Quantum Computing
  • Space
  • Space - Hall-Effect Thruster