116-nm <span class="aps-inline-formula"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><msub><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">H</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow></msub></mrow></math></span> laser pumped by a traveling-wave photoionization electron source

S. J. Benerofe; Guang-Yu Yin; C. P. J. Barty; J. F. Young; S. E. Harris

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.66.3136

116-nm $H_{2}$ laser pumped by a traveling-wave photoionization electron source

S. J. Benerofe, Guang-Yu Yin, C. P. J. Barty, J. F. Young, and S. E. Harris

Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 3136 – Published 17 June 1991

Abstract

We report the use of a photoionization electron source to pump a 116-nm laser in the Werner band (C ${}^{1}Π_{u}$ →X ${}^{1}Σ_{g}^{+}$ ) of molecular hydrogen. The laser is pumped by free electrons which are created by photoionizing molecular hydrogen with soft x-rays from a traveling-wave laser plasma. We show that even though the free electrons have an average temperature of ∼10 eV, the lasing hydrogen molecules retain an ambient temeprature of ∼0.01 eV. This allows an extrapolated small-signal gain of exp(43), with a 1064-nm pumping energy of 580 mJ in 200 psec.