Design and Operation of a Supersonic Flow Cavity for a Non-Self-Sustained Electric Discharge Pumped Oxygen-Iodine Laser
Abstract
The paper presents results of a high-pressure, non-self-sustained crossed discharge-M = 3 supersonic laser cavity operation. A stable and diffuse pulser-sustainer discharge in O2-He flows is generated at pressures of up to P0 = 120 Torr and discharge powers of up to 2.1 kW. The reduced electric field in the dc sustainer discharge ranges from 0.6 x 10(expn -16) to 1.2 x 10(expn -16) Vcm2. Singlet delta oxygen (SDO) yield in the discharge, up to 5.0-5.7% at the flow temperatures of 400-420 K, was inferred from the integrated intensity of the (0,0) band of the O2(a 1 delta to ; X 3 sigma) infrared emission spectra calibrated using a blackbody source. The yield increases with the discharge power and remains nearly independent of the O2 fraction in the mixture (in the 10-20% range). Static pressure and temperature measurements in the supersonic cavity show that a steady-state M = 3 flow in the cavity can be sustained for up to 20 s, at the flow temperature of T = 120 +/- 15 K. The results suggest that the measured SDO yield exceeds the threshold yield at the cavity temperature by up to a factor of 2.5. PLIF iodine vapour visualization in the supersonic cavity, which showed the presence of large-scale structures, suggests the need to improve iodine vapour mixing with the main oxygen-helium flow.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 16, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA640009
Entities
People
- Ashley J. Hicks
- I. V. Adamovich
- J. W. Rich
- Nan Jiang
- S. Tirupathi
- W. R. Lempert
- Yu. Utkin
Organizations
- Ohio State University