Continuous-wave laser pump light sources: new concepts.

The relatively short lifetime of rare-gas discharge pump light sources for high-power cw solid-state lasers is caused mainly by vaporized cathode emitter material reacting with the thermally highly loaded quartz wall. The introduction of new bipolar electrodes without special emitter materials mounted on hot-ended molybdenum-cup seals, together with 60-kHz ac operation, makes possible the application of a tungsten halide cleaning cycle within the lamp bulb. This new type of high-power rare-gas pump light source exhibits 20% better radiation efficiency, 20% lower Nd:YAG laser threshold, and considerably extended lifetime.