Line narrowing and enhanced efficiency of an HgBr laser by injection locking

Abstract

Relative efficiency of 2 0 0Hg7 9Br, Hg7 9Br, and HgBr electric discharge lasers Appl. Phys. Lett. 43, 622 (1983); 10.1063/1.94464 A kinetic model of the sustained discharge HgBr laser

The effect of injected intensity on the spectrum of an HgBr oscillator

“…The injected master oscillator energy spectrum is not rectangular but instead, the energy spectrum falls off gradually on either side of line center. Next, we note that the extracted energy depends only weakly on the injection flux [4]. In fact, a three order of magnitude change in injected flux increases the output by only 30 percent.…”

“…Injection locking is an important practical technique for increasing the spectral brightness of high-power lasers. This method has been used to obtain high efficiency, narrow bandwidth oscillation in KrF [ l ] , [ 2 ] , XeCl [ l ] , XeF [3], and HgBr [4] lasers. In our recent experiments on the injection locking of an HgBr laser, we have demonstrated high efficiency, narrow bandwidth oscdlation throughout the spectral region between 500 and 505 nm.…”

“…The slave laser is the ultraviolet preionized avalanche discharge excited HgBr laser previously described [4]. For this investigation, the gas mix consisted of 975 torr Ne and 25 torr Nz (measured at 20°C) with 2.3 torr of natural isotopic abundance HgBr, (155°C).…”

“…The slave laser resonator is a stable cavity formed by two 3 m radius of curvature mirrors 'with reflectivities of 50 and 90 percent. When this device is operated as a free running oscillator the laser spectrum consists of two bands [4] centered at 502 and 504 nm with bandwidths of roughly 0.5 nm.…”