Ultimate efficiency of nuclear-pumped gas lasers

Abstract

We suggest several cascade lasing schemes: (1) cascade of laser transitions between atom (ion) excited levels when the lower laser level of one laser transition is simultaneously the upper laser level of another transition located below; (2) successive lasing, first, on ion transitions, then after ion recombination on atom transitions; (3) while using multicomponent mixtures, successive lasing on atoms (ions) of separate components. These possibilities are discussed in terms of specific lasers, some of which have been studied experimentally.

Characteristics of the 2.65 {mu}m atomic xenon laser

“…17,20 Melnikov and Sinyanskii have compiled a list of observed laser transitions, gas mixtures, pump rates and efficiencies. 20 The portion of that table that applies to the 2.65 pm transition is reproduced in Table 2. The highest measured efficiency was 1.5 percent for a 3 atmosphere gas mixture of Heme.…”

Stimulated emission due to infrared transitions in chlorine atoms in gaseous mixtures pumped by uranium fission fragments

“…[4]). The apparatus was placed in the lower hall of the VIR-2M pulsed nuclear reactor [11] in the zone of a hemispherical channel.…”

“…Much work has been done on nuclear-pumped high-pressure gas lasers (see, for example, reviews in Refs [1][2][3][4]). One of the main tasks in such investigations is the search for active media and transitions with higher efficiencies of conversion of the nuclear energy into laser radiation and with low lasing thresholds.…”

“…The focus has been on the characteristics of lasers based on transitions in the Xe, Kr, Ar, and Ne atoms and in Cd + ions. The maximum energy parameters (output radiation power up to 2.5 kW, efficiency l%-3%) and the lowest lasing thresholds (threshold thermal neutron flux F t ~ 10 13 cm" 2 s~') were reported for IR transitions in the Xe atom (A = 1.73, 2.03, and 2.6 um) when Ar-Xe and He(Ne)-Ar-Xe mixtures were excited by uranium fission fragments [2,4,5]. Less detailed studies have been made of nuclear-pumped lasers based on transitions in C [6,7], N [8], O [9], and Cl [10] atoms.…”

“…Dependences of the output power Q (1) and of the thermal neutron flux F t at the lasing threshold (2) for the X = 1.59 um line on the relative content of neon (a), on the partial pressure of CC1 4 (b), and on the radiative losses in the cavity (c), obtained for an He-Ne-CCl 4 mixture at a pressure of 2 bar for Pcc\ t -0-03 Torr (a, c), the ratio He: Ne = 1:1 (b, c), and r, = r 2 = 0.998 (a, Oscillograms of a thermal neutron pulse (a) and of the output radiation pulses at the wavelengths I = 2.45 um (b) and 1.59 um (c-f), recorded for a mixture of the He: Ne: CC1 4 =25 000:25 000:1 composition at 2 bar (b) and for He-Ne-CCl 4 (pn e =/>NE = 1 bar) mixtures with partial CC14 pressures 30 x 10~3 Torr (c), 7.6 x 10" 3 Torr (d), 3.8 x 10" 3 Torr (e), and 7.6 x 10" 4 Torr (f).…”