Abstract
The development of remotely pumped sources of backward-propagating impulsive radiation in ambient air (air lasers) is presently a very active research area, motivated by potential applications in remote atmospheric sensing [1]. The only approach that, so far, has succeeded in producing backward-propagating lasing with measurable energy in real air has been based on a two-step excitation scheme involving dissociation of molecular oxygen or nitrogen and subsequent two-photon pumping of the resulting oxygen or nitrogen atoms by laser radiation at specific deep-UV wavelengths [2]. These demonstrations utilized narrow-linewidth deep-UV pump lasers with pulse durations from hundreds of picoseconds to several nanoseconds. The important question about gain mechanisms responsible for the demonstrated laser-like emissions remains open, with the inversion-based gain, hyper-Raman gain and superradiance being suggested as operative mechanisms [3].
© 2015 IEEE
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