The word 'ceramics' is derived from the Greek keramos, meaning pottery and porcelain. The opaque and translucent cement and clay often used in tableware are not appropriate for optical applications because of the high content of optical scattering sources, that is, defects. Recently, scientists have shown that by eliminating the defects, a new, refined ceramic material — polycrystalline ceramic — can be produced. This advanced ceramic material offers practical laser generation and is anticipated to be a highly attractive alternative to conventional glass and single-crystal laser technologies in the future. Here we review the history of the development of ceramic lasers, the principle of laser generation based on this material, some typical results achieved with ceramic lasers so far, and discuss the potential future outlook for the field.

Ceramic laser materials

Unprecedented sums of money are being committed to fusion research facilities around the world, yet there is a distinct danger that key opportunities for performing fundamental and applied research will be missed. A dedicated civilian high-power laser facility is needed to fill this breach.

A high-power laser fusion facility for Europe

SG-III laser facility is now the largest laser driver for inertial confinement fusion research in China. The whole laser facility can deliver 180 kJ energy and 60 TW power ultraviolet laser onto target, with power balance better than 10%. We review the laser system and introduce the SG-III laser performance here.

Laser performance of the SG-III laser facility

Guided transport of a relativistic electron beam in solid is achieved experimentally by exploiting the strong magnetic fields created at the interface of two metals of different electrical resistivities. This is of substantial relevance to the Fast Ignitor approach to fusion energy production [M. Tabak et al., Phys. Plasmas 12, 057305 (2005)], since it allows the electron deposition to be spatially tailored-thus adding substantial design flexibility and preventing inefficiencies due to electron beam spreading. In the experiment, optical transition radiation and thermal emission from the target rear surface provide a clear signature of the electron confinement within a high resistivity tin layer sandwiched transversely between two low resistivity aluminum slabs. The experimental data are found to agree well with numerical simulations.

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Guiding of relativistic electron beams in solid targets by resistively controlled magnetic fields.

This paper reviews work on flashlamp-pumped solid state lasers and discusses diode-pumped solid state lasers, the Mercury laser in particular. It also discusses ICF lasers beyond Mercury.

/pdf/diode-pumped-solid-state-laser-drivers-for-inertial-fusion-2mdsvqa1zu.pdf

Diode-pumped solid-state laser drivers for inertial fusion energy

Recent progress in laser driven implosion is reviewed. Improvements in the uniformity of irradiation by laser beams on fuel pellets have achieved quantitative progress in implosion performance. The recent results of the direct drive–central ignition experiments give us confidence in achieving fusion ignition, burning and energy gain using a multi-beam megajoule laser with full implementation of beam smoothing techniques. Fast ignition research is also reviewed, which could give us a higher energy gain with lower laser energy. The science and technology of laser fusion power plants are beginning to attract wider attention, as forming the road map to achieve commercial power plants for cleaner, safer and abundant fusion energy.Corrections were made to this article on 28 April 2004

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0034-4885/67/3/R04/pdf

K Mima

Papers

Laser driven inertial fusion energy: present and prospective