Pulsed excitation of radiation from zinc vapor: Dominance of emission in the blue-green indicates potential has as inexpensive source for underwater systems

Time-resolved spectra from electrically pulsed zinc vapor discharges show a dominance of peak power emission in the blue-green. There is a good potential of developing a convenient, inexpensive source for underwater systems, as kilowatts of peak power were obtained in this spectral region from a short arc configuration. The dominant transitions were at a triplet (4680, 4722, and 4810 A) in ZnI and at a doublet (4912 and 4924 A) in ZnII. Gain measurements show that in a pulsed electric discharge of pure zinc the population of the ground state of the doublet was unexpectedly large. Oscillations at these wavelengths by electron collisional excitation do not occur. This was verified experimentally. Models are proposed for anomalous population densities of excited states and for the above dominance of fluorescent spectra.