Additive enhancement of short pulse flashlamps

A key factor in the development of iodine photodisassociation lasers is the improvement of pump lamp efficiency in the 250 to 300 nm pump band at pulsewidths of about 10 μs. Previous work by Gusinow showed that certain metal additives appeared to enhance pump lamp output in the 250 to 300 nm region by as much as a factor of three. This had been determined by comparing microdensitometer traces of spectrograms of doped and undoped lamps. The principal problems noted with these lamps were a shot-to-shot variability of more than 30% and an effective life of only 20 shots