Alkali D2 line laser optically pumped by two color free-free absorption

Abstract

A two color pumping scheme has been demonstrated for the Rb D2 line laser (780 nm). Photoexcitation of ground state Rb-rare gas collision pairs at 760 nm (peak of Rb D2 blue satellite in Xe) and ~794.5 nm simultaneously improves the slope efficiency of single color pumping by a factor of 1.8. Furthermore, each D2 laser photon removes 102 cm-1 of thermal energy from the laser gain medium.