Towards Operational Scalability for H⁻ Laser Assisted Charge Exchange
The experimental development of H⁻ laser assisted charge exchange, a.k.a. laser stripping, has been ongoing at the SNS accelerator since 2006 in a three-phase approach. The first two phases associated with proof-of-principle and proof-of-practicality experiments have been successfully completed and demonstrated >95% H⁻ stripping efficiency for up to 10 us. The final phase is a proof-of-scalability stage to demonstrate that the method can be deployed for realistic beam duty factors. The experimental component of this effort is centered on achieving high efficiency stripping through the use of a laser power amplification scheme to recycle the macropulse laser light at the interaction point of the H⁻ stripping. Such a recycling cavity will be necessary for any future operational laser stripping system with at least millisecond duration H⁻ pulses. A second component of the proof-of-scalability phase is to develop a conceptual design for a realistic laser stripping scheme. The status of these efforts and challenges associated with deploying the recycling cavity into the laser stripping experiment will be described in this talk.