Mechanism of pulse discharge production of iodine atoms from CF3I molecules for a chemical oxygen–iodine laser

Abstract

The pulsed chemical oxygen–iodine laser (COIL) development is aimed at many new applications. Pulsed electric discharge is most effective in turning COIL operation into the pulse mode by instant production of iodine atoms. A numerical model is developed for simulations of the pulsed COIL initiated by an electric discharge. The model comprises a system of kinetic equations for neutral and charged species, electric circuit equation, gas thermal balance equation and the photon balance equation. Reaction rate coefficients for processes involving electrons are found by solving the electron Boltzmann equation, which is re-calculated in a course of computations when plasma parameters changed. The processes accounted for in the Boltzmann equation include excitation and ionization of atoms and molecules, dissociation of molecules, electron attachment processes, electron–ion recombination, electron–electron collisions, second-kind collisions and stepwise excitation of molecules. The last processes are particularly important because of a high singlet oxygen concentration in gas flow from the singlet oxygen chemical generator. Results of numerical simulations are compared with experimental laser pulse waveforms. It is concluded that there is satisfactory agreement between theory and the experiment. The prevailing mechanism of iodine atom formation from the CF3I donor in a very complex kinetic system of the COIL medium under pulse discharge conditions, based on their detailed numerical modelling and by comparing these results both with experimental results of other authors and their own experiments, is established. The dominant iodine atom production mechanism for conditions under study is the electron-impact dissociation of CF3I molecules. It was proved that in the conditions of the experiment the secondary chemical reactions with O atoms play an insignificant role.