Continuous anti-Stokes Raman lasers in a He-Ne laser discharge

Novel continuous Stokes Raman lasers (SRL) and anti-Stokes Raman lasers (ASRL) at wavelengths in the range of 603 to 725 nm have been operated in a He-Ne laser discharge tube, between 1s sublevels of Ne using different 2p levels as intermediate resonances. The required population differences or population inversions between the 1s sublevels are generated in the discharge under the typical He-Ne laser operation conditions. The Raman lasers are pumped with single-mode radiation from a dye laser or a Ti:sapphire laser. Threshold pump powers as low as 3 mW and output power up to 7 mW for 100 mW pump power have been obtained. The lasers show specific features such as a tunability up to +or-100 GHz around the resonance, no oscillation at resonance, a characteristic dependence on the direction of the pump polarization, and strong forward-backward gain profile asymmetries.<
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