Recombination laser transitions in expanding plasmas of Mg, Ca, Cu, Zn, Ag, Cd, In, Sn, Pb, and Bi

Abstract

Fifty new laser transitions in the visible and near infrared in ten metal vapors have been observed in the recombination phase of the expanding plasmas produced by a segmented-plasma laser device. Several of the strong visible transitions might be attractive for applications requiring simple lasers that operate at high repetition rates with pulse energies of the order of 0.1 mJ. All the transitions reported here suggest candidates for short-wavelength recombination lasers when isoelectronically scaled to higher ion stages.