<title>An all gas-phase iodine laser using molecular iodine as atomic iodine donor</title>

Abstract

The characteristics of an all gas-phase iodine laser (AGIL) that uses molecular iodine as a source of iodine atoms is studied. The laser is based on the energy transfer reaction between metastable NCl(a1Δ) and ground state I(2P 3/2) atoms, which are produced by the electric discharge of a mixture of I2 and He. At fixed flow rates of the chemical species, the laser output powers are measured at three different positions in a flow reactor. The output power is characterized by a function of the optical axis position and is reasonably reproduced by the numerical calculation. A repetitive pulse of laser output at 50 Hz with a duty factor of 40% is observed. The highest output power is 40 mW at 210 mm downstream from the mixing point of I/H/He and NCl3. This is 80% of the output power generated from the conventional system using HI as an iodine donor. The measured results of the time resolved laser output power suggest that the output power of the I2- AGIL is more sensitive to the electric discharge plasma intensity as compared to that of the HI-AGIL. An AGIL operated using I2 could potentially have the same output power as that of an AGIL operated using HI if a continuous-wave electric discharge generator is used.© (2010) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.