Abstract

Previously we reported laser action in ionic and atomic transitions excited by charge transfer¹ and three-body electron-ion recombination² in electron-beam generated plasmas. Continuous-wave laser action was obtained in more than fifty IR and visible lines using de electron-beam excitation. In all cases the active medium was a mixture of He with another gas or a metal vapor with a relatively low melting point (<900 K). The electron-beam excitation scheme also has the potential of producing substantial laser power in the 220-260-nm spectral region where the direct generation of cw laser light is not available. In this case, however, the active medium must contain Ag, Cu, or Au vapor with a required concentration of the order of 10¹⁵ atoms cm⁻³ with associated vaporization temperatures between 1400 and 2100 K.

© 1988 Optical Society of America