In an effort to explore new methods of producing ion beams from solid materials, a laser-ablation technique for evaporating materials directly into an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source plasma was developed. A pulsed NdYaG laser with approximately 25 W average power and peak power density on the order of 107 W/cm2 has been used off-line to measure ablation rates of various materials as a function of peak laser power. The benefits anticipated from the successful demonstration of this technique include the ability to use very small quantities of materials efficiently, improved material efficiency of incorporation into the ECR plasma, and decoupling of the material evaporation process from the ECR source tuning operation. The results of these tests are reported herein and the design is described for incorporating such a system directly with the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System Positive Ion Injector ECR (ATLAS PII-ECR) ion source.
A traveling-wave laser amplifier is a candidate for addressing key issues in very high speed TDMA network applications. Amplification can compensate distribution splitting losses as well as enable direct or indirect threshold detection. Using a cw temperature tuned laser diode, measurements are reported of the gain and the coupling efficiency both with lenses and lensed fibers. Wavelength effects are noted and noise contribution due to super fliorescence is examined. For short pulse application the source laser is replaced by a 1.32-µm mode-locked Nd-YAG in conjunction with a grating pair pulse compressor to yield a pulse train with a repetition rate of 100 MHz and widths of about 1.5 ps. The temporal effects on line-width through the TWLA are measured with a background free autocorrelator. Pulsed gain and gain saturation measurements are reported.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.