Scattering of light and acoustic disturbances in the atomic iodine laser

Large photodissociation atomic iodine laser oscillators have been observed to develop gas dynamic instabilities during pumping and lasing. In the present work the growth rate of fluctuations is analyzed in a linearized description of the total coupled gas dynamics, chemistry, and lasing. The total growth factor of the gas dynamic instabilities is found to be several orders of magnitude for typical laser parameters. In addition, the predicted scale size of the disturbances is in harmony with the observations.