Development of prototype YAG laser amplifier for the edge Thomson scattering system in ITER

Hatae, Takaki; Hayashi, Toshimitsu; Yatsuka, Eiichi; Kajita, Shin*; Yoshida, Hidetsugu*; Fujita, Hisanori*; Nakatsuka, Masahiro*; Yahagi, Kenichi*; Shinobu, Katsuya*; Ono, Takehiro; Kusama, Yoshinori

An edge Thomson scattering system for ITER is a diagnostic system which measures electron temperature and density at the peripheral region in the plasma (r/a 0.85). Required measurement ranges for the electron temperature and density are 50 eV T 10 keV and 510 n 310 m, respectively. The spatial and the temporal resolutions are 5 mm and 10 ms, respectively. A high-energy (5 J) and high repetition-rate (100 Hz) Q-switch Nd:YAG laser system is necessary to satisfy measurement requirements above. We have been developing the YAG laser system for ITER. We have developed a prototype high-power laser amplifier. Since the laser efficiency of solid-state laser is low in generally ( 2%), heat removal from the amplifier is crucial. In the amplifier design, we carried out heat analysis to optimize the cooling design. To realize 5 J of output energy, more than 1.6 J of energy needs to be extracted from one laser rod. In the initial laser amplification test, the extracted energy was limited 1.4 J by a lateral depumping effect. We have changed a cooling flow tube for the laser rod made by borosilicate glass to samarium-doped glass in order to deplete an infrared light emission. The Sm-doped flow tube was successfully suppressed the lateral depumping, and consequently the extracted energy reached up to 1.76 J. We have obtained a prospect of the real laser amplifier production from the results.