ION LASER THEORY

Abstract

Ion lasers, especially argon, are the most powerful sources of visible and near UV continuous coherent radiation. The active medium of lasers is low-temperature plasma. They are familiar to scientists and engineers from the 70’s. However, a series of physical effects remained unclear and there was a barrier to enhancing the power and improving the quality of the output radiation. The theory of ion lasers is developed at the interface between plasma physics and quantum optics. This paper covers the solution of some of these physical problems, particularly, the high-current regime of gas discharge and the quantum kinetics of ionic collisions. The high-current multi-component discharge is important for intense generation in the ultraviolet spectrum. The ionic scattering leads to the Lamb dip broadening in the single-frequency laser and increases its output.