Population mechanisms in visible carbon monoxide pulsed lasers

The population mechanism in the Ångstrom system of a CO pulsed laser are studied through analysis of the rotational intensities distribution of the emitted bands. The observed spectra were simulated by using a simple excitation model. The results suggest that, apart from electron impact, there is a strong radiative contribution of the VUV 4+system to the gain of the visible emission through a selective depletion of the lower laser level