In the report building and application questions of picosecond terawatt CO2 laser installations are presented. The
design and the description of the basic components of middle-infrared picosecond laser facility (MIRPLF) with terawatt
power of 10 &mgr;m laser radiation manufacturing by efforts of institutes NIIKIOEP and NIIEFA are presented. The main
attention is paid to questions of design of the master oscillator with pulse with 10÷100 ps and the final laser CO2 high
pressure amplifier (HPA) with the intermediate water capacitor integrated in to the gas-discharge chamber. The main
results of experimental investigations of characteristics of MIRPLF components are presented and prospects of MIRPLF
projected peak power increasing are analyzed.
The terawatt picosecond CO2-laser design is considered in the paper. The CO2-laser system includes itself the
following units: a) master oscillator with variable pulse width of 100 ps, and b) laser pre-amplifier being developed on a
basis of a ring optical scheme and operating under the gas pressure of 3 atm. Both experimental and theoretical analysis
of the CO2-laser system is carried out.
To define more precisely the requirements to electric- physical parameters of laser-generated plasma channel needed to trigger a lightning, the analysis of the experimental data on laser-guided long gap discharges is used. The analysis is based on the developed theoretical model of the channel interaction with thunderstorm electrical fields. Two modes of leader progression form a tip of the channel are considered. The obtained data allows determining the principal conversion conditions of the channel into a leader channel. To maintain the plasma channel conductivity during the modes, two laser pulses is supposed to be used. The suggestion was tested experimentally by the use of CO2 and Nd laser.
The results are presented of expert evaluations aimed at developing the optimal concept of creation of a compact TEA CO2 laser with a self-sustained discharge capable of generating the repetitive bursts of ten radiation pulses with 1 kJ-energy in each and the pulse repetition rate of 30 Hz. Particular emphasis is placed on the problems of achieving as small angular divergence and beam wandering as possible.
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