This appears to be a final Nd:Glass amplifier stage from one of the HUGE lasers constructed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, probably SHIVA, which was the predecessor to the NOVA laser, currently the largest of its type in the World (and soon to be dwarfed by the NIF laser, if that program isn't cancelled). It may also have come from another high energy laser research lab laser of the 1970s or 1980s. The unit consists of 16 flashlamps pumping 6 Nd:Glass disks set at the Brewster angle. The flashlamps were timed to fire just prior to the arrival of the light pulse from a previous amplifier stage.
(The following photos and portions of the description were provided by someone who wishes to remain anonymous.)
Some rough specs:
In case you're interested in powering this beast, as I recall, each of the energy storage capacitors was about the size of a refrigerator. Due to structural considerations, they were located in the basement under the amplifier hall. From my rough calculations, the explosion energy (Ex) of one of these flashlamps is over 25 KJ at 100 us, which is what the "input energy" number is based on (25 percent of Ex). No, I don't know what happened to the capacitors, but maybe check the LLNL link, above, if you have space for a few. Of course, this is only an amplifier, you need what goes before it in the chain. :)
The amplifier is impressive just sitting there open like that. It's been called 'The Device', 'The Genesis Device', and other such things by those who've seen it. Realistically, powering it at anywhere near its ratings is out of the question for anyone without the resources of a small nation, but it might be possible to light up the flashlamps at low current using a bunch of neon sign transformers. At a few mA, they will produce white constantly moving streamers in the discharge, somewhat like the behavior of a 'plasma globe'. Of course, you may need 100 kV or more to strike the arc!
(From: Bob.)
If configured as an oscillator (i.e., with mirrors), this should be able to produce well into the several kiloJoule range in a long pulse. That would be enough power to vaporize a small coin!!! I LIKE high power lasers and haven't gotten to play with any REALLY high power/energy lasers for a long time!
In order to duplicate such a laser, I would probably need on the order of tens of thousands of bars of pump diodes. Since I don't have a million bucks sitting around for a toy, I'll use big bulky flashlamps and capacitors. :)
With a BIG Pockels cell, this amp should be capable of generating at least 100 Joules in a short pulse (i.e., less than 100 psec). It has always been an ambition of mine ever since I was a kid building green lasers to do an 'amateur' style laser fusion device. Fusion can be detected in a DT (deuterium-tritium) mixture with only about 15 J input power in that kind of time frame. It would be a major undertaking, but for what it's worth I would document it with plenty of narratives and pics for the FAQ whether it ends up as a quarter blaster or otherwise. HeHeHe... Ever think there would be a chapter entitled "Home-Built Pulsed Laser for Inertial Confinement Fusion" the FAQ??? Nope, didn't think so. :)
(The following photos and descriptions provided courtesy of: Curt Graber (cgraber@fwi.com).)
Well, not nearly as large as the ones above. :)
(The following photos and descriptions provided courtesy of: Curt Graber (cgraber@fwi.com).)
