Short Wavelength Chemical Laser Research Articles

Hydrogen fluoride overtone chemical laser technology

The Hydrogen Fluoride Overtone Chemical Laser Technology Program has exploited the technology base developed over the last two decades For hydrogen fluoride lasers and successfully demonstrated a short wavelength chemical laser. This technology development centers on overtone lasing of the hydrogen fluoride molecule to produce laser radiation at 1.33 μm rather than the conventional fundamental lasing at 2.8 μm. The overtone wavelength can lead to significant improvements in brightness potential as well as atmospheric propagation properties

Preferential excitation and enhanced emission of Pb atoms following detonation of lead azide

Preferential excitation of the 3P°1 state of the lead atom and enhanced emission in the Pb(3P°1Pb(3P°1→1D2) transition at 722.9 nm have been observed following the detonation of lead azide, Pb(N3)2. The detonation is initiated by a short laser pulse and the products are expanded through a supersonic nozzle. It is suggested that the enhanced emission is due to preferential excitation of Pb(3P°1) via energy transfer from electronically excited N2 combined with the effect of self-trapping of the emission from 3P°1 to the 3P0,1,2 states. The implications to short-wavelength chemical lasers are discussed.

Short wavelength chemical lasers

Experimental results on the operation of HF chemical lasers on the v = 2 to v = 0 overtone transitions are presented. Two separate CW laser devices with gain lengths of 15 and 30 cm produced 21 and 56 W of overtone power. The comparable power on fundamental transitions of the same lasers was 97 and 180 W. Thus, these overtone HF lasers produce 22 and 31 percent of the available fundamental power, much higher percentages than previous overtone chemical lasers. The implications of this new short wavelength chemical laser for high power lasers are discussed briefly. 17 references.

A proposed chemically pumped laser based on the b to X transition in O/sub 2/

Simple kinetics calculations demonstrate that the well-known electronic energy pooling reaction involving O/sub 2/(a/sup 1/ Delta ) is capable of producing an effective population inversion in O/sub 2/(b/sup 1/ Sigma ). The densities of O/sub 2/(a/sup 1/ Delta ) which are potentially achievable suggest that the extractable energy storage density of an O/sub 2/(b to X) chemical laser might exceed 0.5 MJ/m/sup 3/. The b to X emission lifetime measurements conducted under conditions of high relative O/sub 2/(b/sup 1/ Sigma ) density reveal no evidence of rapid self-quenching effects which would be potentially detrimental to laser performance. The relatively long energy storage times predicted, together with freedom from reagent mixing requirements, make such a laser an attractive alternative to other existing and proposed short wavelength chemical lasers.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Possible expansion of the spectral emission range of electronic-transition chemical lasers

An analysis is made of the feasibility of increasing the spectral emission range of chemical lasers utilizing electronic transitions. The chemical excitation processes are classified, the main kinetic schemes of donor–acceptor lasers are discussed, and the laser efficiency is estimated. A new class of reactions is proposed as a potential source of electronically excited nitrogen molecules for short-wavelength chemical lasers. Various types of chemical processes involving the generation of singlet oxygen are discussed. A homological series of donor–acceptor pairs potentially suitable for use in exchange lasers (spectral emission range 0.2–1 µ) is proposed.