CW Scalable donor-acceptor gas transfer laser

Abstract

A donor gas, such as helium or argon, is pumped into a receiving end of a chamber formed with widely-diverging walls providing an expanded area at its delivery end. Electrodes mounted in the receiving end produce a potential capable of exciting the admitted gas into He.sub.2.sup.+ or argon metastables. An arc discharge is produced for the helium and a glow discharge for the argon. The excited donor then flows through the chamber to a diffusion mixer formed by an array of nozzles covering its expanded delivery end area where it continually mixes with an acceptor gas, such as N.sub.2, supplied through the nozzles. Mixing results in an electronic excitation energy transfer reaction in which the charge from the excited donor is transferred to the acceptor. An optical resonant cavity communicating with the nozzle array receives the excited acceptor and population inversion in the cavity generates a laser beam. With nitrogen, the emission is a continuous wave in the UV-visible region.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.