Scaling of plasma sources for O/sub 2/(/sup 1//spl Delta/) generation for chemical oxygen-iodine lasers

Summary form only given. In this paper, results from a computational investigation of the scaling of O/sub 2/(/sup 1//spl Delta/) generation in electric discharges sustained in rare gas/O/sub 2/ mixtures at pressure of a few to 10 s Torr will be discussed. Global, 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional plasma dynamics models were used in this study. Typical configurations use remote flowing cw plasma sources which are compatible with the flow and pressure requirements for the supersonic expansion of the excited gas into the laser cavity. In these configurations we found that O/sub 2/(/sup 1//spl Delta/) was largely a function of the eV/O/sub 2/ molecule deposited in the gas; and optimizes at about 8 eV/molecule for He/O/sub 2/ mixtures. Higher energy deposition results in excessive dissociation and gas heating. Since O/sub 2/(/sup 1//spl Sigma/) can be quenched to O/sub 2/(/sup 1//spl Delta/) in optimized gas mixtures, scalings for the production of the sum of O/sub 2/(/sup 1//spl Sigma/) and O/sub 2/(/sup 1//spl Delta/) may be more relevant. Production of O/sub 2/(/sup 1//spl Delta/) in pulsed plasmas will be compared to cw sources as a means to increase both the energy efficiency and yield of O/sub 2/(/sup 1//spl Delta/).