ABSTRACT
We describe a terawatt, femtosecond laser system based on Ti:sapphire amplifiers and the technique of chirpedpulse amplification. The laser output at 807 nm contains 60 mJ of energy in a 125-fs pulse duration. The laser beam is nearly diffraction limited and may be focused to an intensity of 10(18) W/cm(2) with an f/6 optic.
ABSTRACT
We propose using a prolate ellipsoid for collecting and focusing soft-x-ray radiation from a laser-produced plasma to longitudinally pump short-wavelength lasers. Total collection efficiencies greater than 20% at 10 nm into gain regions with aspect ratios of 25 are possible. This geometry offers several advantages with respect to present transverse multiple-spot geometries.
ABSTRACT
We describe the construction and operation of a 109-nm, photoionization-pumped, single-pass laser in Xe III. The laser is pumped by soft x rays emitted from a laser-produced plasma in a traveling-wave geometry. Using a 3.5-J, 300-psec, 1064-nm laser pump pulse, we measure a small-signal gain coefficient of 4.4 cm(-1) and a total small-signal gain of exp(40). The laser is fully saturated and produces an output energy of 20 microJ in a beam with 10-mrad divergence.
ABSTRACT
Stimulated emission on three UV transitions in Cd(+) has been observed by transferring population from inner-shell d-electron states, populated by photoionization, to outer-shell p-electron states using the output from a narrow-frequency dye laser. The use of similar techniques in other elements could eventually result in a number of new lasers in the UV and VUV.
ABSTRACT
A soft-x-ray-pumped inner-shell photoionization laser has been produced in Cd vapor at 4416 and 3250 A. A gain of 5.6 cm(-1) has been measured at 4416 A, and a reasonably high-energy storage of 0.2 mJ/cm(3) in the upper laser states has been obtained.