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| 74 cm CPA gold compressor gratings in a 3 ´ 11 m vacuum chamber |
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| Outside CPA vacuum chamber Mike Perry (left), head of the project, and Charles Townes, Nobel Laureate and inventor of the laser |
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| Engineer Gerald Britten examines a CPA diffraction grating (1480 lines/in, 94 % efficient). |
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| Diagram of regenerative amplifier (from Photonics Online March, 1999
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| Diagram of power amplifier (from Photonics Online March, 1999
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| Diagram of gold and uranium target; a plasma plume
produces electrons (e-) with very high energies which
make gamma-rays (g) that knock neutrons out of the gold nuclei and
cause uranium nuclei to fission. Some gamma-rays are converted into matter-antimatter electron-positron
pairs (green e+).
from Laser induced nuclear reactions |
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| Energy distribution of target gamma-rays,
before (blue) and after (red) the laser shot. The narrow "peaks"
come from the gamma-ray-emitting decays of radioactive isotopes. The 101Tc and
138Xe isotopes were produced by the nuclear fission of 238U.
The 196Au was produced by the photo-neutron reaction in stable
197Au.
From Laser induced nuclear reactions |
