Excimer Lasers

The primary goals of this program are to identify specific operating conditions for achieving laser oscillation on the A to X transitions of the diatomic alkali-rare gas excimer molecules excimers and of the diatomic homonuclear alkali moledule dimers and to demonstrate net laser gain in a laboratory experiment from at least one of the alkali-rare gas systems. The phase of the program covered by this report was devoted to experiments and theoretical modeling on discharge pumping of the potassium-xenon and potassium- argon excimer-dimer systems. A time dependent discharge model was developed and is being used to predict discharge and stimulated emission characteristics of a pulsed transverse discharge through potassium-argon and potassium-xenon mixtures. Modeling results show stable discharge operation under conditions which yield a practical laser gain coefficient on both the K-Xe and K-Ar excimer bands and on the K2 dimer band.