Effect of the method of secondary-fuel supply on the characteristics of a cw chemical HF laser with a three-jet nozzle array

The effect of the angle of secondary-fuel injection into a flow of oxidising gas and pressure of an active medium on the energy and spatial characteristics of a cw chemical HF laser with a three-jet nozzle array are experimentally studied. It is shown that the intensification of reagent mixing at the output of the nozzle array with the three-jet nozzle–nozzle–injector scheme due to the secondary-fuel injection at an angle of 20° to the direction of oxidising-gas flow enables one to reach a maximum of specific output energy, with the mass hydrogen flow lowered by 20% compared to the case of parallel injection. This is accompanied by a 12% increase in the specific output energy and a 15% shortening of the lasing region. The output energy as large as 50% of the maximum value can be reached at the static pressure of the active medium of about 13 Torr, which enables one to increase the pressure at the output of a diffuser by a factor of two when evacuating exhausted reaction products into the environment.