Wall dominated laser discharge using turbulent ambipolar diffusion

Claim 1

An improved CW laser apparatus of the type wherein lasing action is produced in a gas flowing at subsonic speed within the walls of a channel, said channel including an optical resonator cavity whose axis is transverse to the direction of flow of said gas, said gas being capable of stimulated emission of coherent radiation when pumped to produce a population inversion between a higher and a lower energy level, said population inversion resulting from excitation of the flowing gases between cathode and anode electrodes disposed across said channel so as to be parallel with the axis of the optical resonator cavity, said optical resonant cavity axis effectively forming the center of the excitation region between said electrodes, wherein the improvement comprises: a screen extending perpendicularly across said channel upstream of said optical resonator cavity for generating small scale, substantially uniform turbulence across the entire gas flow front within said optical resonator cavity, the perpendicular distance between said screen and the axis of said optical resonator cavity being less than ten times the inverse of the screen mesh size, said turbulence providing both energy and specie diffusion throughout the entire volume of said resonator cavity thereby providing improved operating stability at relatively higher powers.