New mechanism of heterogeneous relaxation of electron energy in the active medium of an oxygen–iodine laser

A mechanism of relaxation of electron energy is proposed: it includes the transfer of electron excitation to the walls of a laser cell, fast resonant transfer of excitation from singlet oxygen to iodine atoms, and heterogeneous relaxation of excited iodine atoms on the walls. It is shown that the rate of heterogeneous relaxation of electron energy in an oxygen–iodine laser is comparable with the rate of relaxation in the gaseous phase. The effective probability of the heterogeneous relaxation of singlet oxygen $\gamma_\Delta^{eff}$ can reach $\sim$0.01.