| 摘要 |
A novel practicable type of gaseous optical gain medium for efficiently generating intense, highly monochromatic, continuous-wave (CW) or pulsed, coherent light beams is disclosed. Gain results from nonlinear optical pumping of a gas of Lambda-type "three-level" atoms, coherently phased ("dressed") via application to the medium of two monochromatic laser beams tuned to the resonance frequencies omega<SUB>0 </SUB>and omega'<SUB>0</SUB>. Nonlinear optical pumping of the "dressed-atom" gas is accomplished through the combined action of two separate physical processes: (1) A low pressure gaseous discharge, occurring continuously within the vessel containing the gain medium, produces intense narrow-band fluorescence at omega<SUB>0 </SUB>and omega'<SUB>0 </SUB>through the process of electron impact excitation (EE). (2) Via a specific form of the nonlinear photonic process of stimulated hyper-Raman scattering (SHRS), photons comprised by the narrow-band fluorescence generated in (1) are efficiently converted to photons comprised by the propagating coherent light beams at omega<SUB>0 </SUB>and omega'<SUB>0</SUB>, thus effecting amplification of the latter.
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