Effects of chemical kinetics of the performance of the atomic iodine laser system

摘要

Model calculations show that chemical reactions which take place in the active medium of a photolytically pumped iodine laser limit the efficiency with which pump photons are utilized and convert significant amounts of the starting materialRI to the unwanted byhyphen;productsR2and I2. Laserhyphen; and rfhyphen;dischargehyphen;based methods for regenerating starting materials from byhyphen;products are evaluated experimentally. For economical operation of large iodine laser systems, CF3I is presently the best starting material, and a pulsed rfhyphen;discharge technique is presently the best one for chemical regeneration. The absorbed energy required to regenerate one CF3I molecule using pulsed rfhyphen;discharge techniques is 5.8 eV.