ISKRA lasers are short pulse

lasers A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...

which were built by the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

at RFNC-VNIIEF in

Arzamas-16 Sarov (russian: Саро́в) is a closed town in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It was known as Gorkiy-130 (Горький-130) and Arzamas-16 (), after a (somewhat) nearby town of Arzamas,SarovLabsCreation of Nuclear Center Arzamas-16/ref ...

() with the approximately 2 kJ output ISKRA-4 laser being completed in 1979 and the 30 kJ output ISKRA-5 laser which was completed in 1989. The main use for both lasers being the investigation into

inertial confinement fusion Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is a fusion energy process that initiates nuclear fusion reactions by compressing and heating targets filled with thermonuclear fuel. In modern machines, the targets are small spherical pellets about the size of ...

high energy density physics High-energy-density physics (HEDP) is a new subfield of physics intersecting condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics and plasma physics. It has been defined as the physics of matter and radiation at energy densities in excess of a ...

and nuclear weapons research. The Russian laser fusion program was first initiated on the suggestion of

Andrei Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, nobel laureate and activist for n ...

in 1962 concerning the possibility that lasers may be capable of achieving the conditions for fusion in imploding spherically symmetrical fuel capsules.

ISKRA-4

The ISKRA-4 laser is a spatially filtered (image relayed) 8 beam photolytically pumped iodine gas laser capable of producing laser pulse energies of around 2 kJ (pulsewidth of about 1 ns) at its fundamental emission wavelength of 1.315

micrometers The micrometre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: μm) or micrometer (American spelling), also commonly known as a micron, is a unit of length in the International System of Unit ...

, though it is also capable of operating in a

frequency doubled Second-harmonic generation (SHG, also called frequency doubling) is a nonlinear optical process in which two photons with the same frequency interact with a nonlinear material, are "combined", and generate a new photon with twice the energy of ...

configuration where it emits light at 658 nm with a pulse energy of around 500 J. ISKRA-4 produced its first thermonuclear neutrons from imploding DT fuel capsules in 1981.

ISKRA-5

The ISKRA-5 laser is a spatially filtered (image relayed) 12 beam photolytically pumped iodine gas laser capable of producing laser pulse energies of around 30 kJ and peak pulse powers of around 100 terawatts (pulsewidth about 0.3 ns) at its fundamental emission wavelength of 1.315 micrometers. ISKRA-5, like ISKRA-4, also has the capability for frequency doubling to the second harmonic. Maximum fusion yield on ISKRA-5 is about 10¹⁰ to 10¹¹ neutrons per target shot.

ISKRA-6

ISKRA-6 is a laser under investigation for future construction by VNIIEF which would be in the near- NIF and LMJ class of extremely high energy, high power frequency tripled Nd:glass lasers used to access the ignition regime of imploding DT fusion fuel capsules for nuclear weapons research. ISKRA-6 would be a 128 beam laser capable of irradiating targets with ~300 kJ of laser light at the 351 nm third harmonic with pulsewidths of around 1 to 3 ns. ISKRA-6 is planned to have 10 times the energy of ISKRA-5.

References

Российский Федеральный Ядерный Центрwww.vniief.ru
{{Lasers Inertial confinement fusion research lasers Science and technology in Russia Science and technology in the Soviet Union

ISKRA-4

ISKRA-5

ISKRA-6

See also

References