Near-UV spectral efficiency of high-current xenon flashlamps

A discussion is given of the limiting spectral efficiency of flashlamps that are used to pump lasers. Absolute measurements indicate that 4.5 percent of the capacitor-bank energy appears as radiant energy in the region 2500-2900 Å (the nominal pump band of the iodine photodissociation laser) for the flashlamps studied in this work. A large portion of the radiation in this band is due to bound-bound processes and not solely recombination radiation and bremsstrahlung as is usually assumed.