HIGH-POWER HF LASER-PUMPED BY AN ELECTRON-BEAM-INITIATED CHEMICAL NONCHAIN REACTION

The development of a high-power HF laser pumped by a chemical nonchain reaction initiated by a radially converging electron beam is reported . A radiation energy of similar to 115 J with an efficiency of similar to 8% in terms of deposited energy has been achieved in a mixture wit h an active volume of similar to 30 liters. It is shown that because o f the high SF6 density, the total pressure jump in SF6-H-2(D-2) mixtur es caused by the electron beam injection and the chemical reactions is several times smaller than that in the active mixtures of exciplex la sers for the same input energies. This factor considerably facilitates the development of wide-aperture HF and DF lasers with an SF6 fluorin e donor pumped by an electron-beam-initiated chemical nonchain reactio n. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.