Inductively stabilized excimer lasers

Journal Article · Sat Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1983 · Proc. Int. Conf. Lasers; (United States)

OSTI ID:7040014

Sze, R C

This paper presents an approach to solving the problem of rare-gas halide avalanche discharge stability. The development of a segmented electrode structure with each element ballasted by an inductor has resulted in very stable discharges and long pulse length laser outputs. The passive stabilization of the rare-gas halide discharges is attributed mainly to the increase in voltage drop across the inductor of a particular segment of the electrode as the discharge in that region begins to go unstable. The advantage of the technique is that the very fast voltage risetime requirement is no longer essential, and the use of conventional thyratron switches without subsequent pulse sharpening circuits is now possible. Presently only small laser devices have been constructed. The 20-cm active length lasers have produced laser pulse lengths greater than 200 ns with efficiencies as high as 1%. Since the intracavity powers for the long-pulsed, short gain length devices are in the region of 200 kW, an order of magnitude below the saturation powers of rare-gas halide lasers, much improved extraction efficiencies are anticipated for longer gain length devices. The small long pulse lasers find applications in injection-locking energy short pulsed lasers in the regenerative amplifier mode without worry of jitter between the two devices. XeCl, XeF, KrF short pulse lasers have all been injection-locked in this manner giving high energy outputs with beam quality approximately three times diffraction limited. In addition simple prism tuning has resulted in 0.6-1 wavenumber linewidths throughout the the XeCl bandwidth and appears to give an improvement of 50 over short pulse lasers for an equivalent tuning chain.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM
• OSTI ID: 7040014
• Journal Information: Proc. Int. Conf. Lasers; (United States), Journal Name: Proc. Int. Conf. Lasers; (United States); ISSN PICLD
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
420300* -- Engineering-- Lasers-- (-1989)
AMPLIFICATION
CHLORIDES
CHLORINE COMPOUNDS
DATA
EFFICIENCY
ELECTRIC DISCHARGES
ELECTRODES
EXCIMER LASERS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FLUORIDES
FLUORINE COMPOUNDS
GAIN
GAS LASERS
HALIDES
HALOGEN COMPOUNDS
INDUCTION
INFORMATION
KRYPTON FLUORIDE LASERS
LASERS
NUMERICAL DATA
PERFORMANCE
PULSE RISE TIME
RARE GAS COMPOUNDS
STABILITY
STABILIZATION
TIMING PROPERTIES
TUNING
XENON CHLORIDES
XENON COMPOUNDS
XENON FLUORIDES