Study of potassium DPAL operation in pulsed and CW mode

Boris V. Zhdanov; Matthew D. Rotondaro; Michael K. Schaffer; Randall J. Knize

doi:10.1117/12.2074414

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7 October 2014 Study of potassium DPAL operation in pulsed and CW mode

Boris V. Zhdanov, Matthew D. Rotondaro, Michael K. Schaffer, Randall J. Knize

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Proceedings Volume 9251, Technologies for Optical Countermeasures XI; and High-Power Lasers 2014: Technology and Systems; 92510Y (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2074414
Event: SPIE Security + Defence, 2014, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Abstract

This paper presents the results of our experiments on development of the efficient hydrocarbon free Diode Pumped Alkali Laser based on potassium vapor buffered by He gas at 600 Torr. We studied the performance of this laser operating in pulsed mode with pulses up to 5 ms long at different pulse energies and cell temperatures. A slope efficiency of more than 50% was demonstrated with total optical efficiency about 30% for the pump pulses with duration about 30 μs. For the longer pump pulses the DPAL efficiency degraded in time with a characteristic time in the range from 0.5 ms to 4.5 ms depending on the pump pulse energy and cell temperature. The recorded spectrum of the side fluorescence indicates that multi-photon excitation, energy pooling collisions and ionization may be strong candidates for explaining the observed performance degradation.

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Boris V. Zhdanov, Matthew D. Rotondaro, Michael K. Schaffer, and Randall J. Knize "Study of potassium DPAL operation in pulsed and CW mode", Proc. SPIE 9251, Technologies for Optical Countermeasures XI; and High-Power Lasers 2014: Technology and Systems, 92510Y (7 October 2014); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2074414

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