Feasibility of UV lasing without inversion in mercury vapor

We investigate the feasibility of UV lasing without inversion at a wavelength of 253.7 nm utilizing interacting dark resonances in mercury vapor. Our theoretical analysis starts with radiation-damped optical Bloch equations for all relevant 13 atomic levels. These master equations are generalized by considering technical phase noise of the driving lasers. From the Doppler broadened complex susceptibility we obtain the stationary output power from semiclassical laser theory. The finite overlap of the driving Gaussian laser beams defines an ellipsoidal inhomogeneous gain distribution. Therefore, we evaluate the intra-cavity field inside a ring laser self-consistently with Fourier optics. This analysis confirms the feasibility of UV lasing and reveals its dependence on experimental parameters. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America