The possibility of the creation of infrared lasers based on the vibrationally excited products of a chemical reaction was first proposed by John Polanyi in 1961.
The continuous wave[broken anchor] (CW) chemical HF laser was first demonstrated in 1969,[3] and patented in 1972,[4] by D. J. Spencer, T. A. Jacobs, H. Mirels and R. W. F. Gross at The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California.
Later work at US Army, US Air Force, and US Navy contractor organizations (e.g. TRW) used a chemical reaction to provide the atomic fluorine, a concept included in the patent disclosure of Spencer et al.[4] The latter configuration obviated the need for electrical power and led to the development of high-power lasers for military applications.
The analysis of the HF laser performance is complicated due to the need to simultaneously consider the fluid dynamic mixing of adjacent supersonic streams, multiple non-equilibrium chemical reactions and the interaction of the gain medium with the optical cavity.
Most of these companies competed for contracts to build HF and DF lasers for DARPA, the US Air Force, the US Army, or the US Navy throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Comprehensive chemical laser models were developed at SAIC by R. C. Wade,[10] at TRW by C.-C. Shih,[11] by D. Bullock and M. E. Lainhart,[12] and at Rocketdyne by D. A. Holmes and T. R.
[citation needed] The early analytical models coupled with chemical rate studies[14] led to the design of efficient experimental CW HF laser devices at United Aircraft,[15] and The Aerospace Corporation.
The TRW Systems Group in Redondo Beach, California, subsequently received US Air Force contracts to build higher power CW HF/DF lasers.
The MIRACL laser has demonstrated effectiveness against certain targets flown in front of it at White Sands Missile Range, but it is not configured for actual service as a fielded weapon.