Knowledge Bank

The post-discharge decay rates of vibrational state populations in a gated cw HCN FIR discharge laser have been measured by millimeter wave rotational absorption techniques. The data, in conjunction with the results of our earlier work on a cw HCN $laser1$, provide a detailed map of the important energy flow pathways in the laser. This makes possible, for the first time, the construction and verification of a simple model for the cw HCN laser excitation and inversion mechanisms. In addition, these data provide the requisite information for the quantification of this model. The resulting predictions, which were obtained with essentially no free parameters, are in excellent agreement with our extensive data set and a substantial body of work reported in the literature.