Visible light localization and amplification in the boundary layer under a flow around the critical point of a cooled blunt body.

An investigation of the flow around the stagnation point of a highly cooled blunt metallic cylinder by a diatomic gas strongly diluted by a chemically neutral gas demonstrates the possibility of light localization in the region of inversion of molecule populations, which are the products of recombination. In observance of the condition of inversion, a high concentration of atoms arises in the boundary layer. The amplification factors for this case are larger than those associated with different means of obtaining inversion. For the case of an Ar:S2 gas mixture flow, an amplification factor of 0.10 per cm was calculated. The results are pertinent to the development of electron-transition chemical lasers.