Application of a diode-laser absorption technique with the D_2 transition of atomic Rb for hypersonic flow-field measurements

Abstract

With a first application of semiconductor lasers to absorption measurements of seeded atomic Rb in high-enthalpy flow fields, a diagnostic technique for time-resolved determination of flow velocity and gas temperature with a line-shape analysis was developed. In our measurements a GaAlAs diode laser was used to scan repetitively at 15 kHz over 1.3 cm(-1) across the D(2) resonance transition (5S(1/2) ? 5P(3/2), 780.2 nm) of seeded atomic Rb to obtain multiple absorption line shapes. The time-dependent signal contains highly resolved spectral line-shape information, which we interpret by fitting the spectrally resolved line shapes to Voigt profiles. Kinetic temperatures in the range 900-1400 K and gas velocities in the range 3900-6200 ms(-1) were obtained from the Doppler-broadened component of the line shape and from the Doppler shift, respectively, of the absorption frequency.