Chemical process yielding stimulated emission of visible radiation via fast near resonant energy transfer

Claim 1

A chemical process yielding stimulated emission of visible radiation via fast near resonant intermolecular energy transfer comprising the steps of: (a) providing a first source of vapor selected from the group consisting of metal and semimetal vapor to be reacted with an appropriate reactant to produce a metastable excited state reaction product which serves as an energy storage medium; (b) providing a second source of atomic vapor selected from the group consisting of metal and semimetal vapor to serve as receptor atoms to receive the energy from said metastable excited state of the reaction product; (c) providing a source of reactant to react with the first source of vapor in a highly exothermic reaction which liberates energy exceeding 2.5 eV, said reactant being selected rom the group consisting of ozone, nitrogen oxide, nitrogen dioxide, and halides; (d) chemically reacting the reactant and the first source of vapor to form metastable states of a final reaction product; (e) transferring energy stored in the metastable states of the reaction product to the second source of atomic vapor serving as receptor atoms by means of near resonant energy transfer to form electronically excited receptor atoms generating a population inversion relative to a terminal laser level of excitation of said receptor atoms; and (f) introducing a quenching gas into the region in which the second source of atomic vapor receives energy in a near resonant energy transfer; and depleting said terminal laser level by means selected from the group consisting of near resonant energy transfer between the quenching gas and the terminal laser level, and complexation of the quenching gas with the terminal laser level or both, such that the population inversion between the excited and the terminal laser level of the receptor atoms can be maintained more effectively.