Concepts for the construction of large reactor-excited laser systems

Two general concepts for specialized nuclear reactors, designed to excite large volumes of high-pressure laser gas using fission foil arrays, are studied theoretically. Typical characteristics of operating nuclear-pumped lasers are used to define the required neutron flux, excitation geometries and energy output of the fission foils. Neutron transport calculations and neutron kinetics calculations are performed for these geometries, yielding the energy deposition in the laser gas and the reactor temperature rise. Making an optimistic assumption for the ultimately attainable efficiency from nuclear-pumped laser media yields laser powers > 1 MW, laser pulse energies approximately greater than 1 MJ and steady-state laser outputs of > 100 MJ for moderately-sized, uncooled reactor structures. Areas of further research are suggested to investigate the feasibility of such large lasers.