Thermal Dissociation of Halogen Azides

Abstract

Both FN3 and ClN3 were dissociated in the presence of a variety of donor molecules, either by pulsed CO2 laser excitation (using SF6 as a sensitizer) or by thermal excitation in a chemically driven shock tube. The donors were selected to support energy transfer from the metastable NF(a) and NCl(a) products of the azide dissociation reactions, and optical diagnostics were employed to study energy transfer rates, optical gain and lasing visible wavelengths. Product of NCI(a) was shown to be inefficient, however, both gain and lasing were achieved in two systems driven by NF(a). Lasting at 471 nm on the BiF9A-X) transition was obtained by transient heating of FN3/Bi(CH3)3 gas mixtures, however, power extraction was highly inefficient due to the low gain provided by the emitter and the short duration of the shock tube experiment. Much higher gain coefficients wer obtained by CO2 laser heating of FN3/B2H6/SF6 gas mixtures, which produced intense BH(A-x) chemiluminescence and lasing at 433 nm in a low volume cavity with a threshold gain of 2.5 %/cm. An improved BH donor was synthesized by reacting B2H6 with NH3 in a heated capillary oven and optical absorption diagnostics were developed for the dark BH(X) and BH(a) states.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1994
Accession Number
ADA285088

Entities

People

  • D. J. Benard

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Chemical Lasers
  • Chemical Oxygen Iodine Lasers
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Chemical Synthesis
  • Chemistry
  • Dissociation
  • Energy Transfer
  • First Principles Calculations
  • Frequency Combs
  • Gas Lasers
  • Laser Applications
  • Laser Beams
  • Lasers
  • Light (Electromagnetic Radiation)
  • Measurement

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Chemistry (specifically Chemical Fluorescence)
  • Combustion science or combustion engineering.
  • Pulsed Power and Plasma Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Directed Energy - Lasers