Scaling laws for pulsed chain-reaction chemical lasers

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Abstract
Scaling laws for pulsed chain‐reaction chemical lasers are deduced with the use of a two‐level vibrational model. The performance of a saturated laser depends only on the parameter K=tcd/tp, where tcd and tp are the characteristic collisional‐deactivation and pumping times, respectively. The normalized output energy per unit volume per pulse of a saturated HF chain‐reaction laser is 2E/εH2,0 =K[1+0(K)], where E is output energy per unit volume per pulse, ε is energy per mole of photons, and H2,0 is the initial concentration of H2 in moles per unit volume. In the range 0.02?φ≪1, the normalized output energy from a saturated HF laser can be expressed as 2E/εH2,0=φ, where φ∼ (F/F2)1/20(F2/H2)0[1 +0.094(F2/H2)0]−1/2. In the latter regime the product Ete is a constant for a saturated laser (te=pulse length).