Sputtered and heated high-voltage hollow-cathode zinc lasers

The operational characteristics of two different high-voltage hollow-cathode zinc ion lasers are reported. The first is a segmented hollow-cathode laser in which the metal vapor is produced by sputtering of the cathode material. In the second, a hollow-anode-cathode laser, the metal is thermally evaporated from a heated side-arm. The small-signal gain on the Zn-II 492.4 nm transition and the multi-line output power on the Zn-II 492.4 and 491.1 nm transitions are measured under different discharge conditions. Small-signal gains of 100 and 60%m(-1) are obtained with the sputtered and heated lasers, respectively. A comparison of the small-signal gain data with those obtained with other discharge configurations is also presented.