Laser start-up system for magnetic mirror fusion

A CO(2) laser system has been developed at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to provide hot start-up plasmas for magnetic mirror fusion experiments. It can irradiate a frozen ammonia pellet with a laser power density in excess of 10(13) W/cm(2) in a 50-nsec pulse. The system uses commercially available lasers. Optical components were fabricated both by direct machining and by standard techniques. The technologies used are directly applicable to reactor-scale systems.