The gasdynamic recombination laser - O2, Cl2, Br2, and NO2
Abstract
The gasdynamic laser employing vibrational freezing of nitrogen/carbon dioxide mixtures is relatively inefficient due to the small fraction of energy that can be stored in vibration in a gas at thermal equilibrium. It is pointed out that, by contrast, the fraction of the enthalpy of a gas at equilibrium which is present in dissociation can be as large as 60 percent. If the dissociated atoms could be made to recombine into an excited electronic level, in such a way as to produce an inversion with an adequate quantum efficiency, an efficient laser, capable of being scaled to high power could be obtained. Requirements concerning the characteristics of suitable candidate molecules are examined and a description is presented of the results obtained in a study of the corresponding parameters for oxygene, bromine, chlorine, and nitrogen dioxide.
- Publication:
-
In: Electronic transition lasers; Proceedings of the Second Summer Colloquium
- Pub Date:
- 1976
- Bibcode:
- 1976eltl.proc...91W
- Keywords:
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- Energy Conversion Efficiency;
- Gas Mixtures;
- Gasdynamic Lasers;
- Power Gain;
- Radiative Recombination;
- Bromine;
- Chlorine;
- Enthalpy;
- Gas Dissociation;
- Nitrogen Dioxide;
- Oxygen;
- Thermodynamic Equilibrium;
- Lasers and Masers