Iodine laser pumped by light from a shock front created by detonating an explosive

The results are presented of investigations, performed in 1965–1966, of a pulsed photodissociation iodine laser utilizing CF₃I and C₃F₇I molecules and pumped by light from a shock front created by detonating an explosive charge. Such lasers were found to possess a unique combination of high output energy and high pulse power. Two types of laser were studied. In one of them the active medium was pumped by light from a shock wave in xenon, and in the other a shock wave propagated through a mixture of the active medium and a rare gas. The energy characteristics of the second type of laser were found to be considerably higher than those of the first type. The laser pulse radiation enegy reached ~100 J with an average power of ~15 MW.