Feature

Progress toward a gamma-ray laser

C.B. Collins, J. A. Anderson, F. Davanloo, C. D. Eberhard, J. F. McCoy, and S. S. Wagal

Levels of nuclear excitation that might be efficiently stimulated in a gamma-ray laser are very difficult to pump directly. To have sharply-peaked cross sections for stimulated emission, such levels must have very narrow widths for interaction with the radiation field. This is a fundamental attribute that has led to the facile criticism that "absorption widths in nuclei are too narrow to permit effective pumping with x-rays."

Publish Date: 01 December 1987