Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Traverso AJ
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3458316 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Sep
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Traverso Andrew J AJ Sanchez-Gonzalez Rodrigo R Yuan Luqi L Wang Kai K Voronine Dmitri V DV Zheltikov Aleksei M AM Rostovtsev Yuri Y Sautenkov Vladimir A VA Sokolov Alexei V AV North Simon W SW Scully Marlan O MO
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20120904 38
We have studied coherent emission from ambient air and demonstrated efficient generation of laser-like beams directed both forward and backward with respect to a nanosecond ultraviolet pumping laser beam. The generated optical gain is a result of two-photon photolysis of atmospheric O(2), followed by two-photon excitation of atomic oxygen. We have analyzed the temporal shapes of the emitted pulses and have observed very short duration intensity spikes as well as a large Rabi frequency that corre ...[more]