Investigation of a Combustion-Driven Chain-Reaction HCl Laser.

A cw combustion-driven HCl laser based on a H2-ClF chain-reaction was investigated and found to possess attractive characteristics for high power laser operation. Under some operating conditions, this laser simultaneously operates at HCl and HF wavelengths. The maximum power extracted at HCl wavelengths was 300 watts. A variety of operating conditions were evaluated and the results suggest that the optimum performance was obtained with a combustor gas temperature of approximately 1000K. Chemiluminescent emission spectroscopy measurements performed on the active media indicated that total vibrational population inversions were achieved on both HF and HCl transitions. An iterative comparison was made from which limits were established for mixing rates and for a number of important reactions for which neither rate data nor product distributions existed. With this tuned computer model, the HCl laser is predicted to operate at static pressures in excess of 50 torr so that pressure recovery directly to atmosphere may be possible.