Damage produced by the free electron laser
Loading...
Authors
Short, Lee R.
Subjects
Free Electron Laser
Directed Energy Weapons
Ship Defense
Directed Energy Weapons
Ship Defense
Advisors
Colson, William B.
Armstead, Robert L.
Date of Issue
1999-06
Date
Publisher
Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School
Language
en_US
Abstract
The first damage experiments produced by a Free Electron Laser were conducted at the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF). In the past, only large scale laser experiments were thought to properly model lasers for weapons applications. Scaled down procedures developed in this thesis allowed the FEL, with a few hundred watts of power, to characterize the damage produced by a megawatt weapon's scale laser. With a power density of 10 kW/cm2, the TJNAF FEL bombards targets with a steady stream of tens of millions of pulses per second. Each pulse contains 50 MW of power in short bursts lasting 4 x 10.14 seconds each. No previous laser experiments have been conducted to explore the effects of the FEL short pulses. Target materials were obtained from the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), Port Hueneme. Data were collected and analyzed using video cameras and optical microscopes, and irradiated at TJNAF. This thesis was a productive cooperation between NPS, TJNAF, and NSWC Port Hueneme, to the benefit of DOD
Type
Thesis
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Organization
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
Funder
Format
ix, 599 p.;28 cm.
Citation
Distribution Statement
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.