Abstract

A continuous optical maser has been operated at five wavelengths in the near infrared. Such a maser oscillator consists of a medium having optical amplification at the wavelength of interest and a Fabry-Perot interferometer as a resonant cavity. The optical amplification is provided by maser action in a discharge through a mixture of helium and neon gas. The Fabry-Perot interferometer is constructed within the gas volume using two very flat, and highly reflecting, parallel, silica plates. The transmission of the Fabry-Perot plates, although small, allows a beam to pass through each end window, with four milliwatts of continuous output power in the strongest transition at 1.153-μ wavelength. Examination of the beam shows that it is almost diffraction limited for its one-centimeter diameter. The spectral line shape at each transition is made up of three or more components each less than a few hundred cycles in width separated by the spacing of orders in the interferometer.

© 1962 Optical Society of America

Optical Properties of a Continuous Helium-Neon Optical Maser*

Donald R. Herriott
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 52(1) 31-37 (1962)

Gaseous Optical Masers

W. R. Bennett
Appl. Opt. 1(S1) 24-61 (1962)

Optical Masers

O. S. Heavens
Appl. Opt. 1(S1) 1-23 (1962)

Properties of the Hydrogen Maser

Daniel Kleppner, H. Mark Goldenberg, and Norman F. Ramsey
Appl. Opt. 1(1) 55-60 (1962)

Threshold Conditions of Masers for Higher Frequencies

Koichi Shimoda
Appl. Opt. 1(S1) 75-79 (1962)