Investigation of high power MHD gas lasers

This report presents the results obtained during the period January 1974 to June 1975 in the study of MHD powered gas lasers. Key results of the work thus far are: (1) The shock tunnel was substantially modified during the past 18 months to improve the quality of the experiments; (2) The gain measurements previously reported were repeated with substantial improvement in the signals; (3) An MHD channel was operated at 19% enthalpy extraction which at the time was the best any MHD experiment operating at reasonable temperature had achieved; (4) An optical reasonator and associated diagnostics and alignment hardware was completed and installed on the shock tube; (5) The shock tube was operated as a CO2 gas dynamic laser to check and develop the resonator and diagnostics; (6) A CO2 mixture with 1% xenon as a seed was operated with lasing output in the presence of electric currents and a magnetic field. The primary task of the present contract was to get lasing from a magnetohydrodynamic plasma containing carbon dioxide.