Atomic alkali lasers pumped by the dissociation of photoexcited alkali-rare gas collision pairs

A new class of photoassociation lasers has been demonstrated in which photoexcited alkali-rare gas collision pairs dissociate in order to produce inversion on atomic alkali transitions. The pump acceptance bandwidths of these excimer bands, historically referred to as spectral satellites, have been observed to be as broad as 5 nm. This characteristic makes excimer-pumped alkali-vapor lasers (XPALs) attractive candidates for the spatial mode conversion of laser diode arrays with nominal linewidths of 2 nm in order to produce high quality (M2 1) beams. Quantum e ciencies exceeding 98% have been measured and may potentially mitigate heat extraction issues associated with high power, large volume lasers. XPALs operating on both the n2P1=2 ! n2S1=2 (D1) or n2P3=2 ! n2S1=2 (D2) transitions of Cs (n = 6) and Rb (n = 5) have been experimentally investigated and show promise for scaling to high power, diode pumped systems. Both semiclassical and quantum mechanical formulations of the free!free transitions which produce satellites are presented, culminating in an improved CsAr(B2 + 1=2) potential. A timedependent rate equation model is also described which clearly shows the validity and utility of employing the laser itself as a sensitive probe of the underlying photoassociation kinetics