Transformation of concentrated sunlight into laser radiation on small parabolic concentrators

Abstract

The possibility of creation of effective lasers on small parabolic solar concentrators with the use of ceramic active elements of disk geometry was studied. Various variants of a design for solar lasers were considered. It is shown that the efficiency of transformation can reach the value of 35% for the considered schemes of solar laser. It was proposed to use solar lasers for large-scale synthesis of nanoparticles and nanostructures.

A Simple Multi-Pass Side-Pumping Scheme for Solar Powered Lasers

“…The conversion of broadband sunlight into laser light by direct or indirect solar pumping is of potential importance because the laser light is a narrowband, collimated and easy to control radiation with the possibility of obtaining extremely high intensity. The potential use of solar-pumped lasers could be spanned over wide terrestrial and space applications such as, for instance, asteroid deflection [1], relativistic propulsion using directed energy [2], mitigation and remediation of the space debris problem [3], wireless power transmission of solar energy from space [4], laser acceleration of proton and ion beams [5], fast ignition by laser generated proton beams [6], inertial laser fusion [7], laser driven neutron sources [8], materials science [9,10], production of long-life betavoltaic nuclear batteries [11] in a cost-effective manner using solar power and so on. In other words, most of the existing or being developed electrically driven laser technologies, for which there is necessity for scaling up and thereby high energy consumption, could be realized with the lasers powered by solar energy, by creating large-scale plants generating laser power.…”