Long‐lived lead‐vapor lasers

摘要

Lead‐laser operation has been demonstrated at 7229 Å in all‐hot sealed‐off quartz discharge tubes for 50‐h cumulative operating times without tube degradation or failure. The maximum output energy of 230 μJ or 2.0 μJ cm-3 was obtained at ∼1.5 kHz, and the discharge efficiency was 0.12%. Average‐power levels of 750 mW at 6 kHz were maintained under burst mode excitation conditions for extended periods at temperatures of ∼1050 °C. Lead‐laser emission at ∼500 °C was also obtained using lead iodide as the starting material.