Cavity-dumped mercury-bromide laser

It is pointed out that efficient, short-pulse lasers operating in the blue-green portion of the visible spectrum are of interest for airborne laser bathymetry-system transmitters. Laser pulsewidths of less than 10 ns and output energies of greater than 1 mJ/pulse are desired, depending on the individual application. One approach for obtaining short-pulse laser emissions is based on the technique of cavity dumping, in which the optical-output coupling of a high-Q laser resonator is rapidly switched from low to high at the peak of the circulating optical flux. In this manner, the optical energy is stored in the cavity and then extracted in one round-trip transit time. The present investigation is concerned with a cavity-dumped mercury-bromide (HgBr) discharge laser which emits 8-ns (FWHM) laser pulses with output energies of 4 mJ/pulse.