Utilization of photorecombination of radicals and atoms in continuous-wave lasers

It is shown that considerable difficulties would be encountered in the utilization of direct photorecombination of atoms and radicals in continuous-wave (cw) lasers because of the short lifetime of the electronically excited quasimolecules resulting from photorecombination. The use of dimers in such reactions would stabilize the electronically excited molecules and increase their equilibrium concentration by many orders of magnitude. This should make it possible to develop a cw laser by mixing atomic oxygen with NO injected from a. supersonic nozzle.