CO2 laser heating of a magnetized plasma column

Abstract
A 280‐cm3 volume of a magnetized plasma column has been heated by a 15‐J CO2 TEA laser. The 2‐eV plasma with peak electron densities of 3×1016 cm−3 was axially irradiated by the collimated unfocused laser beam. A measured temperature increase of approximately 0.5 eV was found to be in excellent agreement with classical absorption by inverse bremsstrahlung. A significant increase in heating was observed using a multipass heating scheme.