Electron-Beam Sources for Pumping Large Aperture KrF Lasers

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Abstract
Krypton-fluoride lasers have been shown to be promising candidates for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) drivers. These lasers can be effectively pumped with electrical discharges or energetic electron beams (e beams). With discharge pumping, the laser aperture is limited in size to a few centimetres (at atmospheric pressure) because of discharge instabilities that cause a homogeneous discharge to degenerate into arcs. Much larger aperture lasers can be pumped using relativistic e beams. At Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), we are constructing high-energy e-beam-driven KrF lasers with apertures as large as 1 m2 for the ICF program. In designing and building these lasers, a number of physics and engineering issues related to large area electron guns (e guns) must be addressed. Among these issues are the following: generation of the relativistic e beams, transport of the e beams into the laser gas, and design and construction of pulsed power devices for driving the e guns. Cold cathode e guns are found...

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