Fast relaxation of the metastable helium state 2S0 in collisions with molecules and collisional lasing on the He (2P1-2S0) transition

In the present study, the laser absorption method was used to measure the rates of quenching of the metastable state He(2¹S₀), the lower laser level in the self-terminating helium laser, with H₂O, NH₃, N₂O, and CO₂ molecules. For the above molecules, the quenching rate constants were found to equal (1.2 ± 0.3)10^− 9, (0.8 ± 0.2)10^− 9, (1.9 ± 0.2)10^− 9 and (2.2 ± 0.4)10^− 9 cm³ s^− 1. Under excitation with long (up to 750 ns) open discharge generated electron beam pulses, lasing on the transition He (2¹P₁⁰-2¹S₀) was examined. In the mixtures He-H₂O and He-NH₃, lasing durations almost equal to the pump-pulse duration were obtained. In the mixtures of He with CO₂ and N₂O, no lasing prolonged in comparison with pure helium was found. The data obtained were explained considering two quenching mechanisms for the state He(2¹S₀): in collisions with molecules and in collisions with plasma electrons having low energies due to fast relaxation of the vibrational states of H₂O and NH₃ molecules.