Electra: durable repetitively pulsed angularly multiplexed KrF laser system

Electra is a repetitively pulsed, electron beam pumped Krypton Fluoride (KrF) laser at the Naval Research Laboratory that is developing the technologies that can meet the Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) requirements for durability, efficiency, and cost. The technologies developed on Electra should be directly scalable to a full size fusion power plant beam line. As in a full size fusion power plant beam line, Electra is a multistage laser amplifier system which, consists of a commercial discharge laser (LPX 305i, Lambda Physik), 175 keV electron beam pumped (40 ns flat-top) preamplifier, and 530 keV (100 ns flat-top) main amplifier. Angular multiplexing is used in the optical layout to provide pulse length control and to maximize laser extraction from the amplifiers. Single shot yield of 452 J has been extracted from the initial shots of the Electra laser system using a relatively low energy preamplifier laser beam. In rep-rate burst of 5 Hz for durations of one second a total energy of 1.585 kJ (average 317 J/pulse) has been attained. Total energy of 2.5 kJ has been attained over a two second period. For comparison, the main amplifier of Electra in oscillator mode has demonstrated at 2.5 Hz rep-rate average laser yield of 270 J over a 2 hour period.