TJNAF free electron laser damage studies

Laser material damage experiments were conducted at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF) free electron laser (FEL) user laboratory with an average power of 100 W and a power density of 10 4 W/cm 2 . The FEL beam bombards the target with a steady stream of tens of millions of pulses per second each containing 50 MW of power in a short burst of B1 ps. No conventional laser combines these characteristics, and no experiments have previously been done to explore the effects of the FEL pulse. The goal is to develop scaling laws to accurately describe large-scale damage from a MW FEL using small-scale experiments. r 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 41.60.Cr