Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Omar Qassim

Publication Date

2-8-2011

Abstract

Metal vapor lasers are a promising candidate for high power laser systems and have been a recent area of interest. These types of lasers seem to combine all the strengths of both gas/chemical and solid state lasers without the weaknesses attributed to them. Metal vapor lasers have very efficient operation and there is a sub-section of metal vapor lasers that have captured the attention of the research community; they are the metal vapor lasers pumped with laser diodes (DPAL). The absorption spectra of most alkali vapor lasers are roughly 1/100th of the width of the diode pump width and broadening is desired to achieve the best overlap of emission width and absorption width. Mixing of a buffer gas to spectrally broaden the alkali vapor is usually done, but also causes issues such as accommodating high pressures as well as thermal issues. What I am doing that no one else has done is to try to make an alkali (Cs) laser using diatomic alkali molecules. Cesium (Cs2) was chosen because of its many interesting and attractive characteristics. Cs2 has a dimer configuration of vibrational and rotational structure. Cesium is the heaviest of all alkali metals, and has the densest vibrational and rotational levels compared to any other alkali metal. With the most rotational and vibrational viii sublevels this leads to the most compact dimer emission. Research was completed to determine if Cs2 could be a desirable gain medium for the future of Diode Pumped Alkali Lasers (DPAL). Some of the achievements completed were finding a suitable enclosure to achieve higher temperatures of over 200 C, finding a solution to stopping the cesium from reaching the enclosure windows and corroding the anti-reflection coatings, calculating Frank-Condon coefficients of the first 90 levels of the ground and excited vibrational states of Cs2, and recording all of the Cs2 emission spectra from 750 nm to 800 nm. Each of these achievements will be discussed in detail, and conclusions will be given at the end.

Document Type

Thesis

Language

English

Degree Name

Electrical Engineering

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

Electrical and Computer Engineering

First Committee Member (Chair)

Hostutler, David

Second Committee Member

Rudolph, Wolfgang

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