The NIKE KrF laser program

NIKE is a large angularly multiplexed Krypton‐Fluoride (KrF) laser under development at the Naval Research Laboratory. It is designed to explore the technical and physics issues of direct drive laser fusion. When completed, NIKE will deliver 2–3 kJ of 248 nm light in a 4 nsec pulse with intensities exceeding 2×1014 W/cm2 onto a planar target. Spatially and temporally incoherent light will be used to reduce the ablation pressure nonuniformities to less than 2% in the target focal plane. These parameters are predicted to be those required for a high gain ICF pellet. The NIKE system consists of a commercial oscillator/amplifier front end, an array of gas discharge amplifiers, two electron beam pumped amplifiers (one with a 20×20 cm2 aperture, the other with a 60×60 cm2 aperture) and the optics required to relay, encode, and decode the beam. Approximately two‐thirds of the system is operational and currently undergoing tests. The output of the smaller e‐beam system, the 20 cm Amplifier, exceeds both the unifo...