Our program addresses a range of basic research and engineering applications in nonequilibrium gas dynamics and thermodynamics. We are concerned with reacting and ionized gas processes, shock wave phenomena, supersonic flows, and combustion. Current research interests include experimental and analytic studies of gas phase energy transfer in diatomic and small polyatomic molecules. We create extreme vibrational mode disequilibrium in flowing mixtures of CO, NO, and other gases by infrared optical pumping using gas lasers. Subsequent energy transfer among vibrational and electronic states and chemical reaction are studied by emission-and laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy. Applications to plasma reactors, laser-assisted chemical vapor deposition, isotope separation chemistry, and new gas laser development are being studied. The work of the group is interdisciplinary, calling on physical chemistry, optics, and laser physics, as well as on more engineering-oriented subjects such as gas dynamics and radiative energy transfer.
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