Abstract

The high-efficiency KrF laser is currently of interest for laser fusion experiments because the short operating wavelength (248 nm) results in high absorption at the target and low-electron preheating, which are problems at longer wavelengths. Be- cause of the short lifetime of KrF and the relatively large nonsaturable losses in the laser medium, the output intensity is limited to 10-20 MW cm^-2. For the high powers required for target irradiation (>10¹³ W), very large apertures are required in addition to pulse shortening schemes such as optical multiplexing and Raman compression.

© 1983 Optical Society of America