High energy laser
An apparatus and process for pumping a lasing media (Preferably krypton fluoride) over a 500 nanosecond period and thereafter compressing and focusing to a target with a final 10 nanosecond compression wave is disclosed. An exciting 10 nanosecond pulse is shaped in an overall rectangular shape with the major axes vertically aligned and this shaped beam directed upwardly and to the side of a normal extending between parallel and opposed mirrors at remote ends of a chamber. The chamber includes at the top thereof a plurality of stripper mirrors aligned along axes substantially normal to the beam path and tilted upwardly to shave successive segments off the upper portion of the beam. Beam passage opposite to the direction of stripper mirror emission produces a series of emitted shaved beam segments each spaced temporally in accordance with stripper mirror separation. The discrete beam patterns are intermediately amplified, shaped, and addressed through a ''scrambling'' mirror system to a laser amplifier incorporated within a telescope. Typically, the telescope is angularly addressed at the lower power and inlet portion of the telescope, amplified in the vicinity of the higher power output and focused to an essentially coplanar scrambler mirror array. The final amplified output from the coplanar scrambler mirror array emits to pulse compression optical train to an outlet wherein final focus to a target for optical compression results.
- Assignee:
- EDB-83-086906
- Patent Number(s):
- US 4337437
- OSTI ID:
- 6178202
- Resource Relation:
- Patent File Date: Filed date 26 Mar 1979; Other Information: PAT-APPL-023987
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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