United States of America As Represented by the Secretary of the Air Force

Gordon D Hager

Timothy J Madden

LaVerne A Schlie

Robert D Rathge

Harold C Miller

Robert F Shea

Michael R Berman

Dan Radzykewycz

Christopher B Cooper

Gerald C Manke

Thomas L Henshaw

A continuous wave laser based on the electronic I*(P)&#x2212;I(P) transition of atomic iodine at 1.315 microns from the NCl(a&#x394;)+I(P) energy transfer reaction using a transverse flow device having gas flow from an upstream subsonic combustor section through a converging-diverging supersonic slit nozzle to a downstream supersonic section and an intersecting optical resonator. Laser operation is achieved through the transformation of the gas phase chemical reagents, D(deuterium), F(fluorine), NF(nitrogen trifluoride), DCl (deuterium chloride) HI (hydrogen iodide) in the subsonic section and HN(hydrogen azide) in the supersonic section.

Supersonic all gas-phase iodine laser

An all gas phase iodine cw laser operating on the electronic I( P )&minus;I*( P ) transition of atomic iodine at 1.315 &mgr;m was described. The laser is based on the energy transfer reaction between metastable NCl(a &Dgr;) and ground state I( P ) atoms. This all gas phase laser has a number of advantages over previous aqueous-based chemical oxygen iodine lasers, including lighter weight, zero-gravity operation, and heat rejection in the exhaust.

Continuous wave all gas phase iodine laser (AGIL)

A repetitively pulsed chemical oxygen-iodine laser having a resonant cavity containing a lasing medium in the form of a flowing mixture of excited oxygen and iodine atoms and an iodine absorption region within the resonant cavity. The iodine absorption region includes a source of iodine atoms and a magnetic field associated therewith. Selectively altering the magnetic field results in changing the absorption characteristics of the iodine atoms and therefore effectively pulses the output of the laser.

Repetitively pulsed Q-switched chemical oxygen-iodine laser

An HBr laser is pumped by a slave laser power oscillator which excites the (2,0) absorption band of the HBr laser, to cause it to lase around four microns. A tunable master oscillator, which is frequency locked to an HBr reference cell, seeds the slave oscillator and maintains lock-on to an absorption line in the (2,0) band of HBr.

Diode-pumped Tm: YAG/HBr four micron laser system

Growing community of inventors

Rio Rancho, NM, United States of America

Gordon D Hager