Sulfur 1S0-1D2 laser by OCS photodissociation

Abstract
Strong laser oscillation has been obtained on the electric‐dipole‐forbidden 1S01D2 transition of atomic sulfur using 146‐nm photodissociation of OCS. A photolytic mixture of OCS with N2 and SF6 produced optimum laser performance. Based on the laser output energy of 5 mJ at 772.5 nm, we infer that an energy density of 2.5 J/liter was stored in the laser transition immediately following photolysis. The one‐half quenching time of S(1S) atoms was approximately 1 μs for these conditions.