CARS diagnostics of the active medium of a metal vapor laser

Copper atoms excited in the active medium of a metal vapor (copper and copper bromide) laser were investigated by four-photon spectroscopy. Both coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) and active hyper-Raman scattering spectroscopy methods were used. The dependence of the anti-Stokes signal intensity on the delay time between the excitation and probing of the active medium of a metal vapor laser was investigated. The experimental data were used to draw conclusions on the kinetics of excitation and decay of resonant, metastable, and some higher states of the 3d ⁹4s 4p electron configuration of the copper atom. Polarization measurements of some of the transitions in the copper atom were used to determine the ratio of the irreducible components of the vector part of the hyper-Raman scattering tensor.