High power tricolor mixed gas ion lasers

Lasers with outputs in the three primary colors are desirable for several applications, including color display and recording systems. It is at present not possible to efficiently achieve properly balanced three color outputs from a single laser with only one gas component. This paper reports on experiments including a parametric study on dc and rf inductively excited ion lasers operated with argon-krypton gas mixtures to obtain the required output color balance. With a 4 mm segmented graphite bore tube and dc currents of up to 50 A., 3 watts of write light was obtained: 1.6, 0.3, and 1.1 watts at 6471 Å (Kr.), 5145 Å, (Ar) and 4884 Å (Ar), respectively from an Ar-Kr mixture.