Ruby laser

About: Ruby laser is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2474 publications have been published within this topic receiving 38933 citations. The topic is also known as: corundum laser & ruby rod.

Laser‐Driven Waves in a Freely Expanding Gas Jet

Abstract: The focused output of a ruby laser has been used to drive waves which travel in the same direction as the laser beam. The density gradient produced by expanding high‐pressure air or hydrogen into a vacuum was irradiated by the laser from the vacuum side of the jet. A luminous plasma was observed to propagate up the jet, through the orifice, and into the gas reservoir. Observations of this type have application to the study of comparable waves generated at the surface of a solid. Measurements of the luminous front velocity are reported over the gas density range of 1–7 amagats and laser power range of 100–500 MW. The scaling relations for this front velocity with laser intensity and gas density are derived for many of the interaction models proposed in the literature. Only the gasdynamic model with fluid motions induced during laser heating compares favorably with the data.

High-efficiency pulse compression with intracavity Raman amplifiers

Abstract: High-efficiency pulse compression using intracavity Raman amplifiers has been computed. The energy of a pump laser stored in a lossless cavity is extracted at the Stokes frequency by means of Raman amplification of an input Stokes pulse. Calculations are made for both long and short duration input Stokes pulses for different lossless cavities. As an example, we use a hydrogen-argon mixture as the Raman medium and 1.5 J/cm2energy fluence stored in the lossless cavity at the ruby frequency. By comparing amplified Stokes pulses to a 30 ns pulse duration conventional ruby laser delivering the same energy fluence, pulse shortening factors larger than 20 are computed with quantum conversion efficiencies higher than 80 percent. These values compare favorably to backward Raman amplification. Moreover, this technique is proved to be able to provide a pulse compression rate larger than 14, even for a broad-band laser, which is impossible with backward Raman amplification. This technique could be used with any laser, even with absorbing laser media (excimer lasers) provided pump energy is stored in the lossless cavity by shifting of the laser frequency with any nonlinear process.