Investigation of the feasibility of generation of short radiation pulses in an atmospheric-pressure chemical H2–F2 laser

A study was made of the dependence of the duration of emission from an atmospheric-pressure H₂–F₂ laser on the composition of the mixture and on the degree of initiation. The initiation source was a neodymium glass laser system with a harmonic generator emitting 10-nsec pulses of the third and fourth harmonics which reached energies of 5 and 2J, respectively. The duration of emission from the H₂–F₂ laser was 45 nsec when the initial concentration of the fluorine atoms was [F]_o=3×10¹⁷cm^–3 and the composition of the mixture was F₂:O₂:H₂:He=300:30:100:320 Torr. The divergence of the radiation emitted by this chemical laser was 1.1 mrad when the specific output energy was 40J/liter; this divergence was only 1.6 times greater than the diffraction limit.