Method and device for excitation and selective dissociation by absorption of laser light and application to isotopic enrichment

摘要

In a method of excitation and selective dissociation by absorption of the monochromatic light emitted by a high-power laser, the laser light is sent at a frequency &ngr;.sub.1 into an isotopic mixture of gaseous molecules in which a certain number of molecules exhibit transitions between two vibrational levels corresponding to a predetermined isotope and separated by an energy interval &Dgr;E.sub.1 = 2h&ngr;.sub.1. The molecules of a predetermined isotopic species are thus excited preferentially until subsequent dissociation into a number of constituents.