Pyrotechnically pumped laser

[danielbriggs]

I was in the uni library earlier today and was having a mooch around some of the journals, and there was a paper on a laser that was pumped by explosives!
Now personally I have never head of such a thing, and thought it was quite interesting to say the least! But perhaps some of you already know about all this and I'm just slow to catch on

I can't post the full article for obvious reasons, however here is the abstract should anyone want to take a look:

Pyrotechnic explosion pumping method is one of the solutions to make miniature and portable laser. A chemical reagent used to pump Nd glass laser was prepared. The main ingredients of the reagent were metal powders and alkali metals' oxysalts. The experimental apparatus of pyrotechnically pumped Nd glass laser was designed. The laser consisted of a phi8 mm x 100 mm Nd glass rod tightly encircled with pump sources by the side. The resonator contained a high reflection plane mirror and a concave mirror of 98% reflectivity. Output experiment used two reagents A and B with different near-infrared radiation intensity, reagent A output 29 mJ laser beam with wavelength 1053 nm, and B didn't output laser. Pumping radiation intensity thresholds of the two pump sources were computed. Reagent A gives 2.68 x 10(4) W*sr(-1), higher than the threshold 2.37 x 10(4) W*sr(-1), and B gives an intensity lower than its corresponding threshold.

All the best,
Dan

[FourDee]

Like lasing a stick of dynamite

[keeperx]

Like lasing a stick of dynamite

beat me to it..

[madgadget]

I was in the uni library earlier today and was having a mooch around some of the journals, and there was a paper on a laser that was pumped by explosives!
Now personally I have never head of such a thing, and thought it was quite interesting to say the least! But perhaps some of you already know about all this and I'm just slow to catch on

I can't post the full article for obvious reasons, however here is the abstract should anyone want to take a look:




All the best,
Dan

I assume from the composition that was 'flash' powder (used in bangers rockets large salutes etc) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_powder

[tocket]

There's about as many different flash compositions as there are pyrotechnicians though. Besides, it's infrared light they're looking for, so it might be something completely different.

Explosives are really useful though, and for just about anything. I'd argue that they should be made completely legal, but then I realize that the world is full with idiots. Typically and idiots and explosives is not a very good combination...

[madgadget]

One of my other jobs is firing firework displays pyro = good! and damn hard work hahaha....

[buffo]

Damn, I came here specifically to see if Steve was going to talk about the fission-pumped x-ray laser design that came out of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Guess he's too worried about the feds.

I, however, have no such worries. And yes Virginia, it is possible to pump doped glass rods with high energy gammas from a fission detonation and extract significant x-ray power via stimulated emission before the entire device is consumed in the resulting fireball. Apparently it's not practical though, because they canceled the program back in the early 90's.

Adam

[heroic]

I was in the uni library earlier today and was having a mooch around some of the journals, and there was a paper on a laser that was pumped by explosives!

Some Israeli folks came up with a CO2 GDL that was powered by an exploding fuel mixture; the cool thing about this was that it was reusable...