Pulse shaping and energy storage capabilities of angularly multiplexed KrF laser fusion drivers

This paper describes a rep-rated multibeam KrF laser driver design for the 500 kJ Inertial Fusion test Facility (FTF) recently proposed by NRL, then models its optical pulse shaping capabilities using the ORESTES laser kinetics code. It describes a stable and reliable iteration technique for calculating the required precompensated input pulse shape that will achieve the desired output shape, even when the amplifiers are heavily saturated. It also describes how this precompensation technique could be experimentally implemented in real time on a reprated laser system. The simulations show that this multibeam system can achieve a high fidelity pulse shaping capability, even for a high gain shock ignition pulse whose final spike requires output intensities much higher than the similar to 4 MW/cm(2) saturation levels associated with quasi-cw operation; i.e., they show that KrF can act as a storage medium even for pulsewidths of similar to 1 ns. For the chosen pulse, which gives a predicted fusion energy gain of similar to 120, the simulations predict the FTF can deliver a total on-target energy of 428 kJ, a peak spike power of 385 TW, and amplified spontaneous emission prepulse contrast ratios I-ASE/I<3 x 10(-7) in intensity and FASE/F < 1.5 x 10(-5) in fluence. Finally, the paper proposes a front-end pulse shaping technique that combines an optical Kerr gate with cw 248 nm light and a 1 mu m control beam shaped by advanced fiber optic technology, such as the one used in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3174444]