The first stage of the petawatt excimer laser project started at the P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, implements a development of multiterawatt hybrid GARPUN-MTW laser facility for generation of ultra-high intensity subpicosecond ultraviolet (UV) laser pulses. Under this project, a multi-stage e-beam-pumped 100-J, 100-ns GARPUN KrF laser was upgraded with a femtosecond Ti:Sapphire front-end, to produce combined subpicosecond/nanosecond laser pulses with variable time delay. Attractive possibility to amplify simultaneously short and long pulses in the same large-scale KrF amplifiers is analyzed with regard to the fast-ignition, inertial confinement fusion problem. Detailed description of hybrid laser system is presented with synchronized KrF and Ti:Sapphire master oscillators. Based on gain and absorption measurements at GARPUN amplifier and numerical simulations with a quasi-stationary code, we are predicting that 1.6 J can be obtained in a short pulse at hybrid GARPUN-MTW Ti:Sapphire/KrF laser facility, combined with several tens of joules in nanosecond pulse. Amplified spontaneous emission, which is responsible for the pre-pulse formation on a target, was also investigated: its acceptable level can be provided by properly choosing staged gain or loading the amplifiers by quasi-steady laser radiation. Fluorescence and transient absorption spectra of Ar/Kr/F 2 mixtures conventionally used in KrF amplifiers were recorded to find out the possibility for femtosecond pulse amplification at the broadband Kr 2 F (4 2 G ! 1,2 2 G) transition, which benefits in 100 times higher saturation energy density than for KrF (B ! X) transition.

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A new regime of the sliding-mode propagation of microwave radiation in plasma waveguides in atmospheric air is studied both experimentally and theoretically. The mechanisms of air photoionization and relaxation under propagation of 25-ns pulses of KrF laser are investigated. It is shown that a tubular plasma waveguide of large radius (much larger than wavelength of the microwave signal) can be produced in the photoionization of air molecules by 248-nm radiation of KrF-laser. We experimentally demonstrate the laser-enhanced transfer of 38-GHz microwave signal to a distance of at least 60 m. The mechanism of the transfer is determined by total internal reflection of the signal on the optically less dense wall of the plasma waveguide. Analytical and numerical simulations performed for various waveguide radii and microwave radiation wavelengths show that the propagation length increases with decrease in the wavelength reaching a few kilometers for submillimeter waves. Medium-size KrF laser facility with about 400-J energy in a train of picosecond pulses is suggested for the directed transfer of microwave radiation to 1-km distance.

Experiments have been performed at hybrid Ti:sapphire/KrF laser facility GARPUN-MTW to develop a novel technique to create a hollow-core sliding-mode plasma-filament waveguide for directed transfer of microwave radiation. Efficient multiphoton air ionization was produced by a train of picosecond 1-TW UV pulses at 248 nm wavelength, or by amplitude-modulated 100 ns pulse combining a short-pulse train with a free-running 1-GW pulse, which detached electrons off O2- ions. Multiple filamentation of UV laser radiation in air was observed, and filamentation theory based on resonance-enhanced ionization was developed to explain the experimental results.