Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC

Craig W Siders

Thomas M Spinka

Andrew James Bayramian

John Edward Heebner

Alvin Charles Erlandson

Jeffrey Devin Bude

Raluca A Negres

Maurice B Aufderheide

Scott C Wilks

Steven T Yang

David A Alessi

Thomas C Galvin

Andreas J Kemp

Wade H Williams

Constantin L Haefner

Otto L Landen

Andrew J Mackinnon

Techniques are provided for scaling the average power of high-energy solid-state lasers to high values of average output power while maintaining high efficiency. An exemplary technique combines a gas-cooled-slab amplifier architecture with a pattern of amplifier pumping and extraction in which pumping is continuous and in which only a small fraction of the energy stored in the amplifier is extracted on any one pulse. Efficient operation is achieved by propagating many pulses through the amplifier during each period equal to the fluorescence decay time of the gain medium, so that the preponderance of the energy cycled through the upper laser level decays through extraction by the amplified pulses rather than through fluorescence decay.

Scaling high-energy pulsed solid-state lasers to high average power

A method for increasing the MeV hot electron yield and secondary radiation produced by short-pulse laser-target interactions with an appropriately high or low atomic number (Z) target. Secondary radiation, such as MeV x-rays, gamma-rays, protons, ions, neutrons, positrons and electromagnetic radiation in the microwave to sub-mm region, can be used, e.g., for the flash radiography of dense objects.

Burst-mode chirped pulse amplification method

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Livermore, CA, United States of America

Craig W Siders