Advances in chemical lasers

Abstract

High power chemical lasers present a fascinating array of special environments and associated technology development subjects. Included are: processes to produce the source reactants; supersonic mixing and reacting flow fields; the production and dissipation of multiple vibrational–rotational molecular states; optical gain extraction in complex geometries; media inhomogeneity effects, and waste energy and reaction products removal. Some configurations desire wavelength selectivity, special optical components, and coherent cavity or beam combining. Progress has been made in these areas in recent years in behalf of cw and repetitively pulsed hydrogen fluoride and deuterium fluoride lasers, subsonic and supersonic oxygen-iodine lasers, and potential shorter wavelength chemical lasers based on chemically excited higher electronic states. This paper presents a brief review of the technical approach in some of the technology areas and the status in achieving practical, integrated high power chemical lasers.