Low threshold visible electron-beam-pumped-lasers

Electron-beam-pumped lasers (EBL) are small-target CRT's which are useful for projection displays, optical printing and PROMs, and optical mass-memory devices. Despite the obvious practical utility of a laser source with simple electronic scanning, applications of these devices have been held up by the high currents and, more importantly, high voltages necessary to achieve laser threshold. We have made ZnSe lasers (blue) with room temperature thresholds of 15 A/cm²at 30 kV and CdS lasers (green) with thresholds of 2.0 A/cm²at 28 kV.