Hydrogen–iodine active medium

An analysis is made of the kinetics of physical processes in a hydrogen-iodine active medium. It is shown that, in principle, it is possible to achieve a population inversion due to the I^*(²P_1/2)–I(²P_3/2) spin–orbit transition in atomic iodine as a result of near-resonant transfer of hydrogen vibrational energy to I^*(²P_1/2) (VE process). A necessary condition for inversion is that at T=300 K the mixture should contain more than 10% of the vibrationally excited hydrogen H₂(ν=2) relative to the ground-state H₂(ν=0). Some typical features of a hydrogen–iodine system are noted and its potential usefulness is demonstrated.