Simple, High Intensity Short Pulse Flashlamps

Abstract

Various flashlamps were constructed using quartz envelopes and simple wire electrodes. The lamps were continuously evacuated to minimize explosive failures. Energies in the 10 to 1000 J range were discharged from low inductance capacitors through a triggered spark gap to the lamps. The lamp discharges occurred primarily in vapors ablated from the quartz envelopes and produced intense light pulses of 1 to 10 μsec duration with submicrosecond risetimes. Lamp explosion energies and peak light outputs were empirically found to be simply related to the lamp dimensions, making it possible to quickly design lamps for various applications. Successful pumping of high energy organic dye lasers demonstrated the effectiveness of these lamps in applications requiring short, high intensity pulses.

A High Average Power Dye Laser Powered by a Vortex Stabilized Flashlamp

“…We found that the rare gas gave more light output when a small amount of an impurity gas like nitrogen or CO 2 was present . The gas-fill pressures for figure 4 are 1 atm except for the ablating wall lamp which is discussed by Ferrar [4] . From figure 4 we see that xenon has about 13 per cent High power dye laser 877 more peak light power and over 50 per cent more light energy output than argon .…”

“…The flashlamp was connected to a gas filling-station, and optical power was measured with different gas fills . Figure 4 shows a comparison of the light intensity from three different gas-fills and an ablating wall flashlamp [4] . We found that the rare gas gave more light output when a small amount of an impurity gas like nitrogen or CO 2 was present .…”

Flashlamp-pumped high gain laser dye amplifiers

“…If wavelength dependence is of little importance and if reabsorption effects can be neglected, equation 9 may be replaced by g "" NW~rB/c (10) using for B either the peak or an average value. That means the gain G increases exponentially with pump power, which has been proved experimentally [2].…”

“…For this experiment a glass dye cell of 2 cm diameter was employed, pumped by four wall-ablating lamps [ 10] giving good uniform illumination of the cell. The radiation spectrum of these lamps is approximately that of a 30000 K black body.…”