Plasma electrode Pockels cell of CEA's megajoule laser project

Rene Bailly-Salins; C. Sudres; Jean-Pierre Marret

doi:10.1117/12.354226

23 July 1999 Plasma electrode Pockels cell of CEA's megajoule laser project

Rene Bailly-Salins, C. Sudres, Jean-Pierre Marret

Proceedings Volume 3492, Third International Conference on Solid State Lasers for Application to Inertial Confinement Fusion; (1999) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.354226
Event: Third International Conference on Solid State Lasers for Application to Inertial Confinement Fusion, 1998, Monterey, CA, United States

Abstract

The large plasma electrode Pockels cell (PEPC), which has originally been developed at LLNL for high energy 4 pass laser amplifier, has been taken up in the megajoule laser project (LMJ) at CEA. Nevertheless, a few alternative technologies and methods have been taken into account to build the first prototype. The frame of both, 2 cm thick, plasma chambers have been cast in one piece of polycarbonate. They are refilled with He + 1 percent O₂ at pressure around 1 mbar. each chamber is equipped with 20 cathodes and 20 anodes. Each cathode is in series with a 10 (Omega) ballast resistor. Each anode is in series with a 10 (Omega) or 5 (Omega) ballast resistor. The electrodes are made of solid graphite plus carbon fiber material. According to the switching function of LMJ, the KDP's electrical driver has to produce 2 pulses of amplitude V_(pi ) equals 17kV, 650ns apart, with a rise and fall time of 100 ns. After a general description of this PEPC, experimental results and theoretical considerations show how we got 2 plasma electrodes with a very good homogeneity and a low resistivity since the plasma current peaks at 1400 angstrom when the 5 (mu) F energy storage capacitor is charged to 4kV. Finally, the design of the plasma current supply and the 17kV pulser is presented. The device is not quite up to scratch but, computer simulations are given.

Citation Download Citation

Rene Bailly-Salins, C. Sudres, and Jean-Pierre Marret "Plasma electrode Pockels cell of CEA's megajoule laser project", Proc. SPIE 3492, Third International Conference on Solid State Lasers for Application to Inertial Confinement Fusion, (23 July 1999); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.354226

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