Abstract

There Is an ongoing interest in the conical emission resulting from the passage of a laser light tuned in the vicinity of a resonant atomic transition^(1–2). We also have observed such emission in high density sodium vapor in the range of 10¹⁵ cm⁻³, when an intense laser radiation is blue detuned with respect to any of the D lines. This conical emission shell has half angle of a few degrees around the laser axis, is red detuned from the respective D line, is spectrally broad (3Å) and is obtained in laser intensity and detunings and sodium vapor density ranges where self-focusing occurs. No symmetric blue shifted component was observed. Harter and Boyd⁽¹⁾ have obtained symmetrical Rabi side-band emission in the forward direction at sodium vapor density of 10¹⁴ cm^−3.

© 1984 Optical Society of America