Near infrared lasing transitions in Ar,Kr, and Xe atoms pumped by a coaxial e-beam

Optimizations of gas composition and input energy were performed for gas mixtures containing a buffer gas and either Ar, Kr or Xe as the lasing gas. The total gas pressure was varied between 1 and 14 bar and the input energy from 0.03 to 0.7 J/cm³. The excitation source was a small coaxial electron beam with a pumping length of 20 cm and a pulse length of 30 ns (FWHM). From an active volume of 13.3 cm³ a maximum output energy of 12 mJ was obtained from a gas mixture containing 0.3% Xe in Ar at a total gas pressure of 10 bar. The intrinsic efficiency was 0.9%.