Alkali metal vapor q switches for synchronizing mode-locked laser pulse trains with external events

Capacitive discharges in cesium vapor and rubidium vapor are used to realize externally controllable Q switches for synchronizing the appearance of pulse trains from passively mode-locked neodymium-glass and ruby lasers with other events occurring on a microsecond time scale. Copyright © 1972 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.