A pulsed, optically-pumped rubidium laser at high pump intensity

A rubidium laser operating at 795 nm is optically pumped by a pulsed titanium sapphire laser to investigate the dynamics of Diode Pumped Alkali Lasers (DPALs). Linear scaling of output intensity for longitudinal excitation at intensities of 1.3–43 kW/cm2 and as much as 32 times threshold is observed. The slope efficiency depends directly on the number of absorbed photons for alkali concentrations of 0.8–2.0 × 1013 atoms/cm3 with no evidence for second order kinetics. The effective absorption cross section is reduced in part by the broad spectral width of the pump source relative to the pressure broadened lineshape. Spin orbit relaxation between the pumped and upper laser levels is sufficiently fast at 550 Torr of methane to prevent bottlenecking at all but the highest intensities. Comparison of laser characteristics with a quasi-two level analytic model suggests performance near the ideal steady-state limit, with the exception of modest mode matching.