The First Terawatt Picosecond CO2 Laser for Advanced Accelerator Studies at the Brookhaven ATF.

Book excerpt: The first terawatt picosecond C02 laser system is under development at the Brookhaven Accelerator Test Facility. Presently operational 1 Joule 100-ps ATF laser will be upgraded with a 10 atm amplifier capable of delivery (approximately) 15 Joules of laser energy in a 3 ps pulse. We describe the design of the x-ray preionized 10 atm amplifier of a 10 liter active volume energized by a 1 MV, 200 kA transverse electric discharge. The amplifier, equipped with internal optics, permits the accommodation of a regenerative stage and a multi-pass booster in a relatively compact single discharge volume. The ATF terawatt C02 laser shall become operational in 1997 to serve for laser acceleration, x-ray generation and other strong-field physics experiments.