Time dependence of copper-atom concentration in ground and metastable states in a pulsed CuCl laser

Abstract

We have measured the time dependence of the concentration of copper atoms in the ground and metastable states in a pulsed CuCl laser by monitoring the absorption of atomic copper lines. We found that the ground-state population rises from a very small value at the end of the dissociation pulse to a maximum and decreases slowly after about 160 μsec. The metastable population reaches a maximum after about 40 μsec and then decreases relatively rapidly. We conclude that the minimum and optimum delay times in a double-pulse copper halide laser are determined primarily by the slow buildup of the copper-atom ground-state concentration. This concentration then decays by recombination.