Status and prospects of the iodine laser

The development status of the Asterix III high-power iodine laser system, whose peak pulse emission power is 1 TW and pulse duration is 0.3 nsec, is described. Current research is directed at the scaling up of the system to higher power, through: (1) measurement of the cross section for stimulated emission at buffer gas pressures of up to 4 bar, (2) improved energy extraction by double-passing of amplifiers, (3) isolation of the amplifiers by means of a novel, saturable-absorber dye, (4) modeling pulse propagation with a computer code, and (5) generation of higher harmonics. A 2 kJ iodine laser with 0.3-2.0 ns-variable pulse duration is planned.