| The influence of intense optical lattices on atoms or molecules offers a particularly useful method for energy and momentum deposition into a non-resonant gas. In this investigation, a proof-of-concept experiment was conducted to validate high intensity pulsed optical lattices as a means of creating high temperature gases for a myriad of aerospace, basic physics, and nanotechnology applications. Traditional methods for creating these flows have either involved altering the chemical composition of the initial gas sample through combustion or ionization or relied on laser resonant interactions with internal energy modes through laser pyrolysis. Due to its non-resonant nature, the use of optical lattices might be beneficial compared to existing methods since it provides an arbitrary, localized, high temperature gas that is tunable and does not introduce unwanted chemical species or high ionization concentrations. As an intermediate step toward verifying optical lattice gas heating, a coherent Rayleigh-Brillouin scattering (CRBS) study was also performed to verify the presented methodology. CRBS is a gas diagnostic technique used for non-intrusive probing of gas thermodynamic properties. In addition to the experimental investigation, a complementary numerical study was conducted using a direct simulation Monte Carlo approach. The numerical study used a modified version of SMILE to predict the gas phenomena within the strong optical potential fields. The goal of substantiating optical lattice heating was accomplished by detecting the acoustic wave generated from the heated volume. The magnitude of the resulting acoustic wave was shown to vary with the optical lattice phase velocity, peaking on the order of the gas' most probable speed. The trend with lattice velocity is consistent with both theory and the numerical study and eliminates other possible heating mechanisms such as laser-induced ionization or molecular dissociation. Limitations for the investigated heating technique are discussed along with future work for quantifying a gas temperature. |
