New Concept for Scaling Excimer Laser Amplifiers.
Abstract
A novel concept for efficient volumetric scaling of excimer lasers to high average power and energy was theoretically and experimentally investigated. Numerical calculations of the extraction efficiency of an excimer laser amplifier with a nonsaturable distributed loss are described. These results show that expanding the beam as it traverses the amplifier can lead to considerably improved extraction efficiency. Expansion angles of 2 to 5 degrees are useful for large scale laser amplifiers (10 meters in length). A small scale proof-of-principle experiment was constructed. This consisted of an electron beam pumped XeCl master oscillator-amplifier system. A 250 kV electron beam pumped a 11 cm x 11 cm x 100 cm active volume which served as both a oscillator and as an amplifier. Meassurements of the extraction efficiency were peformed for collimated, cyclindrically expandning, and spherically expanding beams. An expansion angle of approximately 0.6 degrees led to an improvement of as much as a factor of 2 in integrated extraction efficiency.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 30, 1987
- Accession Number
- ADA182525
Entities
People
- Reich Watterson