Highly efficient supersonic chemical oxygen — iodine laser with a chlorine flow rate of 10 mmol s–1

An experimental parametric investigation was made of a compact supersonic chemical oxygen — iodine laser. The output power of the laser was increased by displacing the point where iodine vapour was added to singlet oxygen from the subsonic to the transonic region of gas flow and by cooling of nitrogen. The output power was 200 W for a Mach number 1.5 in the cavity when the chlorine flow rate was 10 mmol s^–1. An increase of the flow rates of all the gases and of the pressure in the singlet-oxygen generator by a factor of 1.6 resulted, when the other conditions were kept constant, in a proportional increase in the laser output power. An estimate of the chemical efficiency was in good agreement with the experimental value of 22%.