Technical challenges for the future of high energy lasers

The Solid-State, Heat-Capacity Laser (SSHCL) program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a multi-generation laser development effort scalable to the megawatt power levels with current performance approaching 100 kilowatts. This program is one of many designed to harness the power of lasers for use as directed energy weapons. There are many hurdles common to all of these programs that must be overcome to make the technology viable. There will be a in-depth discussion of the general issues facing state-of-the-art high energy lasers and paths to their resolution. Despite the relative simplicity of the SSHCL design, many challenges have been uncovered in the implementation of this particular system. An overview of these and their resolution are discussed. The overall system design of the SSHCL, technological strengths and weaknesses, and most recent experimental results will be presented

Sub-50 femtosecond, multiterwatt Ti:sapphire laser system

We discuss a Ti:sapphire laser system based on chirped pulse amplification which produces over 750 mJ in sub-50 femtosecond pulses. We also describe a novel, all-reflective stretcher with a stretching ratio of 30,000

Interaction of a High-Power Laser Beam with Metal Sheets Interaction of a high-power laser beam with metal sheets

Experiments with a high-power laser beam directed onto thin aluminum sheets, with a large spot size, demonstrate that airflow produces a strong enhancement of the interaction. The enhancement is explained in terms of aerodynamic effects. As laser heating softens the material, the airflow-induced pressure difference between front and rear faces causes the metal to bulge into the beam. The resulting shear stresses rupture the material and remove it at temperatures well below the melting point. The material heating is shown to conform to an elementary model. We present an analytic model of elastic bulging. Scaling with respect to spot size, wind speed, and material parameters is determined