FAILOR%LLL@LLL-MFE.ARPA (08/02/85)
From: Bruce Failor <FAILOR@LLL.MFENET> To: physics@SRI-UNIX.ARPA Would like to comment on a couple things. First, Nd:Glass lasers were never proposed to be used in any ICF power plant--the requirements for a power plant are 5MJ of < 1 micron light at the 100-200 TW power level and new solid-state and gas laser concepts are being developed to achieve this high power level at an acceptable cost. Nd:Glass is used now because it is a relatively well understood technology, and it can be run at high power levels (my opinion). See "Inertial Confinement Fusion," in _Energy_and_ Technology_Review_,LLNL publication, October 1982, for example. The rep rate of the laser is not limited by the cooling of the laser, but rather the time to set up and allign the target. They have added a second target chamber to allow them to take shots more rapidly. In the Hylife reactor design, it is true that columns of Li will be used, but no experiments have been done in this configuration. Other things have been done with the high power lasers, besides ICF research. These include XUV and soft X-ray laser research (first unam- biguous demostration) and also bomb physics. Both use the big laser as a power source. Bruce Failor MFE @ LLNL -------