Chemical lasers produced from O(¹D) atom reactions. III. HCl elimination lasers from the O(¹D) + CH_nCl_4-n (n = 1, 2, and 3) reactions

Chemical HCl laser emissions were observed in the four-centered unimolecular elimination of HCl from vibrationally excited Cl₃COH, Cl₂HCOH, and ClH₂COH molecules in an optical cavity. The vibrationally excited methanol molecule, which possesses at least 130 kcal/mol of internal energy, was generated by insertion of an O(¹D) atom into a C-H bond of a chloromethane molecule. The O(¹D) atom was produced from the flash-photolytic decomposition of O₃. The vibration-rotation transitions of the laser emission were identified, and the initial populations ratios of the highest gain transitions have been estimated.