Development of pulsed e-beam systems for large volume high power KrF lasers

A 200J, 60ns, e-beam-pumped KrF laser code-named SPRITE is presently being constructed. A half-sized cold cathode SPRITE diode has been tested on an existing e-beam machine. Greater than 65% of the diode energy has been extracted from the e-beam diode and deposited in a gas cell. Observed deposition profiles in the gas compare well with calculations. In the final machine the SPRITE diodes will be fed from four, 60ns, 5Ω water-filled pulse forming lines and the line output gaps will be laser triggered for synchronisation. One arm of this 5Ω pulsed power system has been successfully tested.