Carbon monoxide vibrational kinetics in a transverse electric discharge waveguide laser

A model is presented for the molecular kinetics of a CO Electric Discharge Laser. The model is based on a set of vibrational rate equations including excitation by electron impacts, single quantum vibration-vibration (V-V) exchange collisions, single quantum vibration-translation (V-T) energy transfer collisions and spontaneous emission of radiation. The electron-molecule coupling resulting in vibrational excitation involves the entire vibrational manifold through a multilevel pumping scheme. Vibrational population distributions are characterized by the ratio between a characteristic time for the exchange of vibrational quanta and a characteristic pumping time. In a steady state analysis the model describes the coupling between subsonic one-dimensional channel flow and vibrational kinetics in a Transverse Electric Discharge Waveguide configuration. Conversion of electrical energy into vibrational energy is shown to be feasible with good efficiency.