Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / The Free Electron Laser has the potential to become a revolutionary weapon system. Deep magazines, low cost-per-shot, pinpoint accuracy, and speed of light delivery give this developing weapon system significant advantages over conventional systems. One limiting factor in high energy laser implementation is thermal blooming, a lensing effect which is caused by the quick heating of the atmosphere, so that the laser beam does not focus on the desired spot, thereby degrading the effectiveness of the laser on target. The use of multiple beam directors focusing on a target from a single platform may mitigate thermal blooming by allowing half of the laser's energy to travel through a given volume of air, so that they only overlap very near the target. Less energy traveling through a given volume of space means less heating, and therefore lessens the effects of thermal blooming. Also, simulations of FEL's were conducted modifying parameters such as the number of undulator periods, electron beam focus, the normalized Rayleigh length, and mirror output coupling, in order to determine optimum design parameters. New parameters for the next proposed FEL were simulated to examine the effect of mirror tilt on laser power and extraction as well. / Lieutenant, United States Navy
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nps.edu/oai:calhoun.nps.edu:10945/1645 |
| Date | 03 1900 |
| Creators | Mitchell, Ethan D. |
| Contributors | Colson, William B., Blau, Joseph A., Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)., Department of Physics |
| Publisher | Monterey California. Naval Postgraduate School |
| Source Sets | Naval Postgraduate School |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | xviii, 62 p. : ill. (some col.), application/pdf |
| Rights | This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. As such, it is in the public domain, and under the provisions of Title 17, United States Code, Section 105, may not be copyrighted. |
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