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As the common visible-light laser transitions between electronic or vibrational states correspond to energies up to only about 10 eV, different active media are needed for X-ray lasers. Between 1978 and 1988 in Project Excalibur the U.S. military attempted to develop a nuclear explosion-pumped X-ray laser for ballistic missile defense as part ...
Sankey diagram of the laser energy to hohlraum x-ray to target capsule energy coupling efficiency. Note the "laser energy" is after conversion to UV, which loses about 50% of the original IR power. The conversion of x-ray heat to energy in the fuel loses another 90% – of the 1.9 MJ of laser light, only about 10 kJ ends up in the fuel itself.
Comparing a ruby laser that operates at 694.3 nm to a hypothetical soft X-ray laser that might operate at 1 nm, this means the X-ray transition is 694 3, or a little over 334 million times less likely. To provide the same total output energy, one needs a similar increase in input energy.
Laser types with distinct laser lines are shown above the wavelength bar, while below are shown lasers that can emit in a wavelength range. The height of the lines and bars gives an indication of the maximal power/pulse energy commercially available, while the color codifies the type of laser material (see the figure description for details).
By 1980 Livermore considered both nuclear bombs and nuclear reactors as viable energy sources for an x-ray laser. On November 14, 1980, the first successful test of the bomb-powered x-ray laser was conducted. The use of a bomb was initially supported over that of the reactor driven laser because it delivered a more intense beam.
A disk laser configuration presented in 1992 at the SPIE conference. [1] One type of solid-state laser designed for good power scaling is the disk laser (or "active mirror" [1]). Such lasers are believed to be scalable to a power of several kilowatts from a single active element in continuous-wave operation. [2]
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A ruby laser head. The photo on the left shows the head unassembled, revealing the pumping cavity, the rod and the flashlamps. The photo on the right shows the head assembled. Laser pumping is the act of energy transfer from an external source into the gain medium of a laser. The energy is absorbed in the medium, producing excited states in