caa a22 4500 445368683 CHVBK 20180317142939.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170323e20110601xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s00340-011-4540-1 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s00340-011-4540-1 Limitations of an optically pumped rubidium laser imposed by atom recycle rate [Elektronische Daten] [W. Miller, C. Sulham, J. Holtgrave, G. Perram] A rubidium laser pumped on the 52S1/2-52P3/2 D2 transition by a pulsed dye laser at pump intensities exceeding 3.5MW/cm2 (>1000 times threshold) has been demonstrated. Output energies as high as 12 μJ/pulse are limited by the rate for collision relaxation of the pumped 2P3/2 state to the upper laser 2P1/2 state. More than 250 photons are available for every rubidium atom in the pumped volume during each pulse. For modest alkali atom and ethane spin-orbit relaxer concentrations, the gain medium can only process about 50 photons/atom during the 2-8ns pump pulse. At 110°C and 550Torr of ethane, the system is bottlenecked in the 2P3/2 state and all of the incident photons cannot be absorbed. The output energy is linearly dependent on pump pulse duration for a given pump energy. The highly saturated pump limit of the recently developed three-level model for diode pumped alkali lasers (DPALs) is developed. The system efficiency based on absorbed photons approaches 36% even for these extreme pump conditions. Springer (outside the USA), 2011 Miller W. Department of Engineering Physics, Air Force Institute of Technology, 2950 Hobson Way, 45433-7765, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, USA aut Sulham C. Department of Engineering Physics, Air Force Institute of Technology, 2950 Hobson Way, 45433-7765, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, USA aut Holtgrave J. Department of Engineering Physics, Air Force Institute of Technology, 2950 Hobson Way, 45433-7765, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, USA aut Perram G. Department of Engineering Physics, Air Force Institute of Technology, 2950 Hobson Way, 45433-7765, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, USA aut Applied Physics B Springer-Verlag 103/4(2011-06-01), 819-824 0946-2171 103:4<819 2011 103 340 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-011-4540-1 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-011-4540-1 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Miller W. Department of Engineering Physics, Air Force Institute of Technology, 2950 Hobson Way, 45433-7765, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Sulham C. Department of Engineering Physics, Air Force Institute of Technology, 2950 Hobson Way, 45433-7765, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Holtgrave J. Department of Engineering Physics, Air Force Institute of Technology, 2950 Hobson Way, 45433-7765, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Perram G. Department of Engineering Physics, Air Force Institute of Technology, 2950 Hobson Way, 45433-7765, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Applied Physics B Springer-Verlag 103/4(2011-06-01), 819-824 0946-2171 103:4<819 2011 103 340 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer