Demonstration of a metastable argon laser of 10 W by transverse pumping.

Optically pumped metastable rare gas lasers have been extensively investigated as promising high-energy lasers. These systems employ discharge-excited metastable inert gases as the lasing medium. Following optical pumping, a buffer gas, typically helium, is introduced to facilitate a collisional population transfer to the p[1/2] level, thereby establishing population inversion. To date, laser outputs in the watt level have been demonstrated. However, further power scaling crucially depends on the ability to stably generate high metastable densities at elevated pressures approaching atmospheric conditions. In this Letter, we report a pulsed discharge technique based on a peaking capacitor rapid discharge circuit, which is capable of producing metastable particle densities exceeding 10cm at pressures up to 900 mbar. By employing this discharge approach in conjunction with transverse optical pumping, we have realized a maximum output power of 12.5 W from a semiconductor-pumped metastable argon laser system.