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Gasdynamic laser; population inversion; small signal gain; area ratio; wedge nozzle

An analytical method has been proposed to optimise the small-signaloptical gain of CO₂-N₂ gasdynamic lasers (gdl) employing two-dimensional (2D) wedge nozzles. Following our earlier work the equations governing the steady, inviscid, quasi-one-dimensional flow in the wedge nozzle of thegdl are reduced to a universal form so that their solutions depend on a single unifying parameter. These equations are solved numerically to obtain similar solutions for the various flow quantities, which variables are subsequently used to optimize the small-signal-gain. The corresponding optimum values like reservoir pressure and temperature and 2D nozzle area ratio also have been predicted and graphed for a wide range of laser gas compositions, with either H₂O or He as the catalyst. A large number of graphs are presented which may be used to obtain the optimum values of small signal gain for a wide range of laser compositions without further computations.

V Shanmugasundaram^{1 2} N M Reddy¹

1. Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore - 560012, India
2. University of Edinburgh, England

Published

August 1983

Manuscript received

12 January 1983

Manuscript revised

4 June 1983