Investigation on a non-diaphragm type shock tube for the study of gas-dynamic lasers

Summary form only given, as follows. A non-diaphragm type shock tube is being developed for the gas-dynamic laser research This shock tube has the feature that it has no diaphragm which the conventional shock tube has in order to separate the high pressure driver region and low pressure region By this new scheme, several advantageous properties are expected to be obtained The reproducibility of the experiments will be largely improved, the impurity problem in the experiments will be decreased, and experimental period will be greatly reduced The laser medium is planned to be uniformly heated by a shock wave. After an incident shock wave reaches to the end of the low pressure region, the reflected shock wave will re-heat the incident-shock heated plasma, and a high temperature condition will be sustained for a certain long period In some cases, the so-called Tailored-Mode operation will be utilized in order to obtain a very long experimental time The shock wave heated plasma will be expanded through a two-dimensional nozzle and the temperature will drop rapidly This may lead to a non-equilibrium state, where the higher vibrational level of the medium has a greater population than the lower vibrational level has Consequently, the population inversion is generated, and the laser oscillation might be generated By using this shock tube, the research for laser oscillations with various medium gases is planned.