In an electric discharge oxygen-iodine laser, laser action at 1315nm on the I(P1∕22)→I(P3∕22) transition of atomic iodine is obtained by a near resonant energy transfer from O2(aΔ1) which is produced using a low-pressure electric discharge. The discharge production of atomic oxygen, ozone, and other excited species adds higher levels of complexity to the postdischarge kinetics which are not encountered in a classic purely chemical O2(aΔ1) generation system. Mixing effects are also present. In this paper we present postdischarge modeling results obtained using a modified version of the BLAZE-II gas laser code. A 28 species, 105 reaction chemical kinetic reaction set for the postdischarge kinetics is presented. Calculations were performed to ascertain the impact of a two stream mixing mechanism on the numerical model and to study gain as a function of reactant mass flow rates. The calculations were compared with experimental data. Agreement with experimental data was improved with the addition of new kinetics and the mixing mechanism.

Laser oscillation at 1315 nm on the I(2P1/2)-->I(2P3/2) transition of atomic iodine has been obtained by a near resonant energy transfer from O2(a1Delta) produced using a low-pressure oxygen/helium/nitric oxide discharge. In the electric discharge oxygen-iodine laser (ElectricOIL) the discharge production of atomic oxygen, ozone, and other excited species adds levels of complexity to the singlet oxygen generator (SOG) kinetics which are not encountered in a classic purely chemical O2(a1Delta) generation system. The advanced model BLAZE-IV has been introduced to study the energy-transfer laser system dynamics and kinetics. Levels of singlet oxygen, oxygen atoms, and ozone are measured experimentally and compared with calculations. The new BLAZE-IV model is in reasonable agreement with O3, O atom, and gas temperature measurements but is under-predicting the increase in O2(a1Delta) concentration resulting from the presence of NO in the discharge and under-predicting the O2(b1Sigma) concentrations. A key conclusion is that the removal of oxygen atoms by NOX species leads to a significant increase in O2(a1Delta) concentrations downstream of the discharge in part via a recycling process; however, there are still some important processes related to the NOX discharge kinetics that are missing from the present modeling. Further, the removal of oxygen atoms dramatically inhibits the production of ozone in the downstream kinetics.

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