Practical techniques to homogenize the feed gas mixture and enhance the laser-jet interaction time in laser assisted aerodynamic separation studies.

Laser assisted aerodynamic separation not only suffers from lengthy homogenization time of the feed gas mixture but also dilution of the enriched stream when the duration of the pulsed gas jet stream far exceeds that of the emission of the pulsed laser. We report here practical techniques to overcome the former and alleviate the latter by imposing forced circulation of the feed gas prior to affecting aerodynamic separation and the rim gas during the separation process, respectively. The forced circulation of the feed gas comprising the process gas and the buffer gas resulted in drastic reduction in the time required for their thorough mixing. The recirculation of the rim gas, on the other hand, back to the pulsed nozzle through the feed vessel allowed its increased interaction with the laser beam, thereby reducing the dilution of enrichment to a certain extent.

Repetitive operation of switchless transverse flow transversely excited atmosphere CO2 lasers.

The enhanced preionisation efficiency of a mutually coupled parallel spark preioniser has been exploited to achieve switchless operation of a transversely excited atmosphere (TEA) CO(2) laser in the conventional transverse gas flow configuration. This made the laser more compatible to repetitive operation and the satisfactory performance of a switchless TEA CO(2) laser of ~8 cc active volume is reported here up to a maximum repetition rate of 100 Hz at a gas replenishment factor of ~2.