Abstract

Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in H₂ is currently being utilized as a method of increasing the tunability of excimer lasers. One important application is the conversion of the Xe laser (350 nm) or the XeCl laser (308 nm) to the blue-green for naval communications. It has recently been demonstrated¹ that these excimer lasers can be shifted two or three Stokes orders in H₂ with conversion efficiencies exceeding 30%. Modeling these results and extrapolating to much larger pump energies requires that the Raman gain coefficient be known to better than 10% at room temperature, and that the variation of this gain coeffient with temperature be known to determine gas cooling requirements. In addition, enhanced conversion efficiencies to high order anti-Stokes lines have been recently observed at low temperatures using SRS in H₂, and a reduction of the Raman linewidth (thus increasing the gain) may be part of the explanation of this important result.

© 1983 Optical Society of America