The application of laser resonance saturation to the development of efficient short wavelength lasers

Laser saturation of an atomic resonance transition represents an important new mode of coupling laser energy into a gas or plasma. The basic mechanism in either case is superelastic collisional heating of free electrons. For a gas various seed ionization processes precede this interaction. A computational code for mapping the three dimensional nature of this interaction was developed. This is required because this strong interaction invariably distorts and attenuates the laser pulse as it propagates through the medium being excited. A new experimental facility for studying this interaction was developed and the first spectroscopic measurements of the electron temperature produced in a sodium plasma created through laser resonance saturation was completed. This temperature appears to be somewhat lower than predicted by computer simulation.