Abstract

Rare gas halide lasers, with their approximately 1 nm gain bandwidth and their unbound (KrF, ArF) or weakly bound (XeCl, XeF) ground state are attractive candidates for picosecond pulse amplifiers. This paper reports probing of, and amplification in, a XeCl gain medium (3-5 atm) using an approximately transform limited, ~2 ps, 308 nm pulse derived by frequency doubling the amplified output of a synchronously pumped c.w. mode-locked dye laser.

© 1981 Optical Society of America