High power supersonic chemical oxygen iodine laser

A performance update of DLR's supersonic chemical oxygen iodine laser shows output powers of typically 10kW CW and a chemical efficiency close to 20%. It is suggested to use a quasi-CW magnetically Q-switched mode of operation with considerably enhanced peak- to-CW power as a new ground based laser candidate for near earth space debris clearing. A preliminary design demonstrates the attractive features of such a laser system as compared to previous approaches. In particular, the chemical oxygen iodine laser promises to be rather compact and to substantially reduce the total debris clearing time.