A miniature electron beam pumped laser

The 1.73 μm XeI laser has been operated in a fully continuous mode using a table-top electron beam pumped laser setup. A 12 keV electron beam sent through a 300 nm thick silicon nitride membrane into a laser gas mixture of typically 600 mbar gas pressure was used for pumping. A low loss cavity was installed, resulting in a very low pumping power of 37 mW to reach laser threshold. The geometrical conditions for the laser setup such as the shape of the beam pumped volume and its overlap with the optical mode volume are discussed. The laser scheme has been clearly identified as a recombination laser scheme by operating the laser in pulsed mode and observing the time structure of the laser pulse.