Power oscillator circuit modeling and redesign for the Particle Beam Fusion Accelerator II (PBFA-II) switch trigger laser

The energy output and reliability of the multi-joule, injection-locked KrF laser used to trigger the PBFA II accelerator gas switches were improved through modifications identified in modeling the Blumlein driver circuit for the power oscillator. A combination of the SCEPTRE/sup 1/ network solver code and JASON /sup 2/ electrostatic field code were used to model the laser pulse-forming circuit in its single-channel rail gap configuration and modified versions with three or five discrete switches across the 1.45-m-wide, water-insulated transmission line. Three regularly spaced trigatron spark gaps resulted in a more uniformly driven laser volume with lower variations in voltages (10%) and rise times (9%) along its length. With the new configuration, over 3000 shots have been recorded without a single misfire compared to an average of --25 shots before a prefire with the original design. The gas mix and pressure had to be optimized to match a given driver pulse voltage and rise time to achieve maximum performance from the laser. We summarize the model results which led to our decision to change the Blumlein switch configuration