PERFORMANCE OF THE ASTERIX-IV IODINE LASER

The single-beam Asterix IV high-power iodine laser, presently operated at a pulse length of 0.3 ns, has achieved its projected output power of 4 TW. It is designed to deliver output pulses with lengths ranging from 0.1-3 ns with a maximum power of 5 TW and an energy of up to 2 kJ. This laser has been developed on the basis of 10 years of experience with the 1 TW Asterix III laser and with the support of a I-D and 3-D pulse propagation code. Special emphasis has been put on increasing the overall efficiency of the laser system and obtaining a laser beam intensity profile as homogeneous as possible. In this article, the measures for improving the laser performance and the results obtained hitherto are presented.