Feature
Progress toward a gamma-ray laser
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."
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