Abstract

A CO₂ laser system has been developed at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to provide hot start-up plasmas for magnetic mirror fusion experiments. It can irradiate a frozen ammonia pellet with a laser power density in excess of 10¹³ W/cm² in a 50-nsec pulse. The system uses commercially available lasers. Optical components were fabricated both by direct machining and by standard techniques. The technologies used are directly applicable to reactor-scale systems.

© 1977 Optical Society of America

Laser induced damage in optical materials: 8th ASTM symposium

A. J. Glass and A. H. Guenther
Appl. Opt. 16(5) 1214-1231 (1977)

Uniform illumination of spherical laser fusion targets

James E. Howard
Appl. Opt. 16(10) 2764-2773 (1977)

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H. G. Ahlstrom
Appl. Opt. 20(11) 1902-1924 (1981)

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C. E. Thomas
Appl. Opt. 14(6) 1267-1273 (1975)

High-energy krypton fluoride lasers for inertial fusion

Stephen Obenschain, Robert Lehmberg, David Kehne, Frank Hegeler, Matthew Wolford, John Sethian, James Weaver, and Max Karasik
Appl. Opt. 54(31) F103-F122 (2015)