TIME-RESOLVED XENON FLASH-LAMP OPACITY MEASUREMENTS

A laser-aided technique has been used for measuring time-resolved opti cal transmissions of xenon flash lamps at numerous visible and infrare d wavelengths, flash-lamp current densities, lamp diameters, pulse dur ations, and xenon pressures. Long-pulse (similar to 600-mu s) and shor t-pulse (similar to 10-mu s) cases specific for optically pumping soli d-state,dye, and atomic iodine lasers were studied. Opacity measuremen ts were made for flash-lamp current densities up to 30 kA/cm(2). Flash lamps having fused silica envelope diameters between 0.8 and 4.5 cm a nd xenon pressures between 2 and 450 Torr were investigated in these e xperiments. Xenon temperatures between 6000 and 25,000 K were estimate d from the frequencies of observed are-acoustic oscillations. Importan t applications for increasing the pumping efficiencies of large Nd:gla ss and photolytic iodine laser amplifiers are discussed.