Stimulated-Emission Wavelengths of Lasers Based on Activated Crystals

Abstract

An index of stimulated-emission wavelengths for all known lasers based on activated crystals has been compiled from the data of Table 5.1. It is presented in Table 8.1 and facilitates selection of a laser with a desired stimulated-emission wavelength; it indicates the type of crystal, and its induced transition and operating temperature. This information will be useful both for constructing conventional lasers with given spectral properties and for choice of CAM lasers [26–30], as well as crystals for parametric generators [469, 490]. These data may provide help in the investigation of various processes that occur during interaction of powerful laser radiation with the medium. These include such problems as producing and investigating high-temperature plasma [231, 495] and also studying the physics of multiphoton transitions [542]. The considerable extension of the spectra of stimulated emission of crystal lasers as far as ≈3 μm in recent years [655] encourages the prospect of their wide application in laser chemistry [543, 544]. Because crystal lasers are characterized by high monochro-maticity and high-peak-power output, they may be used, together with gas lasers, for selective excitation of molecules that have extremely close vibration frequencies. If the molecules of an excited mixture have different isotopic compositions, then laser-produced dissociation of one of the molecules, with subsequent decomposition, may result in isotope separation.