VUV laser in the Lyman band of molecular hydrogen pumped by fstitanium-sapphire laser pulses
Insam, S.; Tommasini, R.; Fill, E.E.
Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of
Volume 5, Issue 6, Nov/Dec 1999 Page(s):1510 - 1514
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/2944.814991
Summary:We report lasing at 160 nm in the Lyman band of molecular
hydrogen. The laser is pumped by 200 mJ/150 fs pulses from the ATLAS
titanium-sapphire laser at our institute. The pump pulses are focused at
an angle of incidence of 60° onto a 9-cm-long gold target to a line
focus, generating traveling-wave excitation. With 80 mbar of hydrogen in
the target chamber we measure an average gain of 1.1 cm-1 and
achieve a total gain-length product of 10. The evaluation of the
far-field pattern shows that the beam originates from a region with an
electron density of 5×1015 cm-3. A simple
model of the H2 laser is presented which explains the main
part of our observations and supports a pump mechanism of photoelectron
pumping
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