US Government as Represented by the Secretary of the Army

Dennis R Womack

Thomas G Miller

Bonnie G McDaniel

John E Hagefstration

A laser using heat and thermionic electrical output from a nuclear reactor in which heat generated by the reactor is utilized to vaporize metal lasants. Voltage output from a thermionic converter is used to create an electric discharge in the metal vapors. In one embodiment the laser vapors are excited by a discharge only. The second embodiment utilizes fission coatings on the inside of heat pipes, in which fission fragment excitation and ionization is employed in addition to a discharge. Both embodiments provide efficient laser systems that are capable of many years of operation without servicing. Metal excimers are the most efficient electronic transition lasers known with output in the visible wavelengths. Use of metal excimers, in addition to their efficiency and wavelengths, allows utilization of reactor waste heat which plagues many nuclear pumped laser concepts.

Nuclear heated and powered metal excimer laser

A device for producing high power coherent radiation by using nuclear energy as the energy source to cause photons to be produced from a photon producing gas and in turn utilizing the photons to pump a laser gas to create a population inversion necessary for lasing.

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Knoxville, TN, United States of America

Dennis R Womack