High Power Lasers

By Hammer, D.

Excerpt
Introduction: In Summer 2002, JASON undertook a study for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the prospective scientific value of high energy (HEPW) lasers to the NNSA's Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP). Our charge was principally to look at the potential value of such lasers to achieving increased understanding of nuclear weapons physics, but with attention paid to the impact of HEPW lasers on unclassified new science, including inertial-confinement fusion (ICFJ, astrophysics, and highfield physics. We were also asked to assess the plan for petawatt laser facility development and research activities that is being developed by NNSA's major laboratories, including the technical and programmatic risks associated with it. The main report presents our detailed response to the study charge; this first chapter summarizes our findings, conclusions and recommendations.

Table of Contents
Contents 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY I 1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Findings and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.3 Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2 IN*RUDUCTIUN 9 2.1 Introductory Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.2 High Energy Petawatt Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.2.1 HEPW laser technology status. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.2.2 High-damage threshold grating and other technology challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.3 Why Are We Potentidly Interested in High Energy PW Lasers for NNSA Missions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2.4 The Study Chater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 WHAT CAN A PETAWATT LASER DO? 19 3.1 Broad Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 3.1.1 Conversion of PW radiaticm into energetic particles . . 19 3.1.2 Generation of X-rays with energies > 10 keV . . . . . . 21 3.1.3 Increase the accessible range of high-enera-density states of matter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 3.1.4 Fast Ignition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 3.2 Science issues of potential importance to the NNSA . . . . . . 27 3.2.1 Isochoric heating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3.2.2 EOS experiments that use HEPW laser backlighters . . 28 3.3 Basic Science Possibilities with PW Lasers . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3.3.1 Direct Observation of Important States of Matter Not Othemise Achievable in the Laboratory . . . . . . . . 30 3.3.2 Laboratory experiments can be designed for which measurements may be scaleable to important astrophysical regimes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 3.3.3 Development of tools which may have uses for the exploration of new regimes and phenomena . . . . . . . . 34 3.3.4 New Fundamental Physics in Superstrong Electric and Magnetic fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 3.4 Facility requirement for basic science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36`