Chemically Pumped Electronic Transition Lasers

Abstract

For a number of years we have been examining the ability to partition the chemical reaction energy directly into electronic transitions. The obvious advantage with this approach is that energy, which comes basically from chemistry, is partitioned directly into electronically excited states rather than going through an electrical power generation step with its associated inefficiencies. The disadvantage of such pumping schemes is that the excitation energy is limited to that of the chemical bond, 3 to 4 ev. Thus, unless multiple collisions are invoked, only electronic states below 4 ev could be pumped by such energy partitioning.