Progress toward the delivery of high energy pulses with the Aurora KrF/ICF laser system
Because of the attractiveness of short wavelength lasers for inertial confinement fusion (ICF), the Los Alamos National Laboratory is engaged in a program to investigate the feasibility of high power KrF lasers as future ICF drivers. The main hardware element in this program is the Aurora KrF laser system, which is a prototype for demonstrating the applicability of optical angular multiplexing and serial amplification by large electron-beam-driven KrF laser amplifiers to potential large-scale fusion drivers. Multiplexing is a straightforward scheme for matching the energetic component (/approximately/5 ns) of the required target pulse to the longer pulse time (/approximately/500 ns) required for practical, efficient large-scale KrF laser amplifier operation. Aurora uses a multiplexed 96-element train of 5-ns pulses, which is amplified and passed through a demultiplexer, where all pulses in the train are stacked in time by using suitable time-of-flight delays. Presently, the laser system is configured to deliver 48 stacked 5-ns pulses to the target at multikilojoule energy levels. In principal, it is possible to extract energy levels exceeding 10 kJ from the final Aurora amplifier. In this paper, we will report on the performance of the front end, amplifiers, and the optical train. Amplifier improvements, energy extraction experiments, and subsequent progress in the delivery of demultiplexed pulses to the target plane will also be discussed. As of this conference, we have tested the amplifier upgrade hardware, measured the gain on two modified amplifiers, installed optics on the main power amplifier, sized the beams to the target chamber, and begun firing the amplifier chain in a step-by-step process of integration from the front end lasers to the target plane. At the time of presentation, the second amplifier in the chain of four has exceeded the original design output of 50 J by more than 20%. 11 refs., 15 figs., 3 tabs.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 6178742
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-89-366; CONF-881244-9; ON: DE89007750
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: LASERS '88, Lake Tahoe, NV, USA, 5 Dec 1988; Other Information: Portions of this document are illegible in microfiche products
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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KRYPTON FLUORIDE LASERS
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ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
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GAS LASERS
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