Abstract

Fusion-oriented plasma experiments require pulse durations in the range from 50 to several nanoseconds. Since the iodine laser works in the saturation region, strong pulse compression by a factor of 3-5 occurs.¹ This means that 0.3-nsec long target pulses require chain input pulse lengths between 0.9 and 1.5 nsec. Such pulses can be easily produced by active mode locking²; longer pulses, however, cannot be realized with this technique. The chain input pulses necessary for the long target pulses (1-3 nsec) have thus to be generated by a different scheme.

© 1983 Optical Society of America