August 8, 2024
Blue Laser Fusion, Inc. is a start-up, small business developing a novel high power laser concept that enables consideration of new target materials and structures. The Blue Laser Fusion laser concept is achieved through the implementation of a large-scale high finesse cavity, also known as an optical enhancement cavity, that coherently stacks pulses temporally separated in time, resulting in short pulse generation with energies on the order of kilojoules with up to a 10 Hz repetition rate, and an estimated 40% wall-plug efficiency. While the technique has been demonstrated at small cavity lengths, we seek to build cavities on the order of 150 m, which require high precision diagnostic tools and controls as well as specialized optical coatings to amplify the laser light with almost no loss. Professor Rana Adhikari, director of the 40m laser lab at Caltech, has decades of experience developing diagnostics, controls, and high reflectivity optics for large-scale laser cavities for the detection of gravitational waves. In this work, Professor Adhikari will evaluate new diagnostics and controls for the pulsed-laser regime, that we will then implement in an optical enhancement cavity optimized for high-energy laser generation suitable for inertial fusion energy application.