Design of the energy storage system for the high energy gas laser facility at LASL

The Antares laser is being built in the High Energy Gas Laser Facility (HEGLF) at Los Alamos to continue laser fusion experiments at very high power. The laser medium will be pumped by an electrical discharge, which requires an energy input of about 5 MJ in a few microseconds at about 500 kV. The energy storage system which will provide the pulsed power will be a bank of high-voltage pulse-forming networks. Tradeoff studies were performed comparing the performance of multi-mesh networks with single-mesh networks. A prototype pulse-forming network is being built to test components and trigger performance. It is a Marx generator storing 300 kJ at 1.2 MV open circuit, with 3 microns H internal inductance.