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That was just a prototype laser to prove the direct drive approach with a high frequency solution.. They demo'ed a suitable laser operating at 10hz vs. 0.0001HZ
by mikeyouse 4y ago
That was just a prototype laser to prove the direct drive approach with a high frequency solution.. They demo'ed a suitable laser operating at 10hz vs. 0.0001HZ with the existing NIF capability. Since the 100J Mercury laser was transferring more than 10x the energy to target compared to NIF (with an obvious path to 20x) - think of this as a 1/20th scale replacement for a single NIF beam with the ability to fire multiple shots per second.
Even if they couldn't increase the power past 100J (which they certainly can), using 2,000 beams instead of 192 doesn't seem too difficult given the much smaller overall energy and heat-removal requirements.