High Power Lasers for New Applications

Abstract

For many years the attempts to create a super long conductive channels were taken in order to study the upper atmosphere and to settle special tasks, related to the energy transmission. There upon the program of creation of “Impulsar” represents a great interest, as this program in a combination with high-voltage high repetition rate electrical source can be useful to solve the above mentioned problems. It looks like as a some kind of “renaissance of N. Tesla ideas” for the days of high power lasers. The principle of conductive channel production can be shortly described as follows. The “Impulsar”-laser jet engine vehicle—propulsion take place under the influence of powerful high repetition rate pulse-periodic laser radiation. In the experiments the CO2-laser and solid state Nd YAG laser systems had been used. Active impulse appears thanks to air breakdown ( 30 km), placed in the vicinity of the focusing mirror-acceptor of the breakdown waves. With each pulse of powerful laser the device rises up, leaving a bright and dense trace of products with high degree of ionization and metallization by conductive nano-particles due to the ablation process. Conductive dust plasma properties investigation in our experiments had been produced on the basis of two very effective approaches: high power laser controlled ablation of different materials and by electrical explosion of wire. Experimental and theoretical results of conductive canal modeling will be presented. The estimations show that with already experimentally demonstrated figures of specific thrust impulse the lower layers of the Ionosphere can be reached in several 100 s that is enough to keep the high level of channel conductivity and stability with the help of high repetition rate high voltage generator. Some possible applications of new technology are presented.