A complete packaged optical firing system was designed and fabricated to be used to trigger optical detonators. The system consists of a specially designed Nd:YAG laser operating at 1064 nm, attenuator module, and splitter module that divide the beam into multiple high power, and one low power channels. The beams are then focused into fibers to transmit the optical pulse to the optical detonators. The low power channel can be used for monitoring timing and/or energy. No active cooling is required since it is designed for low repetition rates. The system is designed to be rack mounted, requiring only 110 V AC power and rugged enough to be transported to various test sites without further alignment. One of the unique aspects of this system is the incorporation of numerous safety features to prevent accidental release of optical or electrical energy, mirroring safety themes required for electrical firing systems.
A compact, ruggedized 12-channel, dual wavelength, fiber-coupled laser system was designed, assembled and tested to support fiber injection experiments. A flashlamp pumped, Q-switched, Nd:Cr:GSGG laser, operating at 1061 nm was assembled and characterized. To optimize the laser for fiber injection, a stable, multimode, Polarization Output Coupled (POC) resonator design was utilized. The design did not use any active cooling and was ideal for low duty cycle applications requiring no more than one shot every 30 seconds. The laser output was frequency doubled to 530 nm utilizing a Type II interaction in a KTP crystal. A nonlinear conversion efficiency of 56% was obtained. Two beam splitting and fiber injection modules, one for each wavelength, were utilized to transform the single laser input beam into six parallel fiber channels. Four of the channels were provided for high output energy and two for low energy monitoring. In addition to the 12 fiber optical outputs, full aperture 1061 nm and 530 nm output ports were provided with independent energy adjustments. The entire laser system was packaged into a rugged 0-ring sealed aluminum housing to maintain cleanliness. The housing measured 18" x 22" x 2.75" and weighed 43.5 pounds. The capability to externally select wavelength, beam format (fiber coupled or full aperture) and output energy was provided. This was to preserve internal cleanliness and facilitate system operation in dirty environments. Alignment strategies and performance results including laser efficiency, far field beam divergence, nonlinear conversion efficiency, fiber-to-fiber energy uniformity, and fiber output intensity profiles will be presented.
The X1 accelerator project at Sandia National Laboratory/New Mexico utilizes SF6 insulated, multi-stage, UV laser triggered gas switches. A 265 nm UV laser system was designed and built to generate eight simultaneous output pulses of 10 mJ each with a 13 nsec pulsewidth.
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