COIL performance modeling and recent advances in diagnostic measurements

This paper describes the analysis of power extraction from a chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) using a simplified saturation model (SSM). Previously our COIL modeling efforts have been limited by an inability to accurately measure O<SUB>2</SUB>(<SUP>1</SUP>(Delta) ) concentrations which in turn is a measure of the power available in the laser. Earlier application of the SSM to RotoCOIL data implied that our measured O<SUB>2</SUB>(<SUP>1</SUP>(Delta) ) could not be correct. In this paper we show how a new method for experimentally inferring O<SUB>2</SUB>(<SUP>1</SUP>(Delta) ) by measuring O<SUB>2</SUB>(<SUP>3</SUP>(Sigma) ) leads to better agreement between experiment and theory. These results strongly imply that if a COIL model is anchored to literature O<SUB>2</SUB>(<SUP>1</SUP>(Delta) ) measurements, caution needs to be applied when using the model for predicting performance.