Abstract
Recent work in our laboratory has demonstrated that UV lasers possess some attractive attributes as igniters for premixed reactive gases.1,2 These include a relatively high degree of efficiency (typically <1-mJ pulse energy required) and a high degree of control with respect to the amount of energy imparted in the activated volume. In comparison, pulsed lasers operating in the visible through the IR region exhibit inferior behavior with respect to their ignition potential. A primary reason for this difference is that the UV lasers excite the reactive gaseous medium through electronic state resonances and thus liberate free electrons in the laser focal volume much more easily through the multiphoton ionization (MPI) process. The efficient production of these electrons is important since they act as seeds for the laser microplasma formation process.
© 1989 Optical Society of America
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