Photoassociation of alkali-rare gas atomic collision pairs provides an alternative approach to optically pumping atomic alkali lasers. Lasing on the 6 P21/2→6 S21/2 (D1) transition of Cs has been observed when the blue satellite of the 6 P23/2←6 S21/2 (D2) transition, peaking at ∼837 nm for mixtures of Cs vapor, Ar, and ethane, is pumped by a pulsed dye laser. For 50% output coupling, laser threshold with respect to absorbed pump energy is ∼40 μJ at T=435 K and the slope efficiency approaches 10%. The measured spectral breadth for the blue satellite (≳5 nm at 410 K) will accommodate cw pumping of the Cs laser with conventional semiconductor lasers.
The exciplex pumped alkali laser (XPAL) system was recently demonstrated in mixtures of Cs vapor, Ar, and ethane, by pumping Cs-Ar atomic collision pairs and subsequent dissociation of diatomic, electronically-excited CsAr molecules (exciplexes or excimers). Because of the addition of atomic collision pairs and exciplex states, modeling of the XPAL system is far more complicated than classic diode pumped alkali laser (DPAL) modeling. In this paper we discuss BLAZE-V multi-dimensional modeling of this new laser system and compare with experiments.
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