We discuss the possibility of extending solid state laser technology to high average power and of improving the efficiency of such lasers sufficiently to make them reasonable candidates for a number of demanding applications. A variety of new design concepts, materials, and techniques have emerged over the past decade that, collectively, suggest that the traditional technical limitations on power (a few hundred watts or less) and efficiency (less than 1%) can be removed. The core idea is configuring the laser medium in relatively thin, large-area plates, rather than using the traditional low-aspect-ratio rods or blocks. This presents a large surface area for cooling, and assures that deposited heat is relatively close to a cooled surface. It also minimizes the laser volume distorted by edge effects. The feasibility of such configurations is supported by recent developments in materials, fabrication processes, and optical pumps. Two types of lasers can, in principle, utilize this sheet-like gain configuration in such a way that phase and gain profiles are uniformly sampled and, to first order, yield high-quality (undistorted) beams. The zig-zag laser does this with a single plate, and should be capable of power levels up to several kilowatts. The disk laser is designed around …

Since the luminosity in a linear collider depends on the horizontal and vertical emittance (epsilon/sub x/, epsilon/sub y/) as 1/..sqrt..(epsilon/sub x/epsilon/sub y/) a possible method for improving the performance would be to decrease one or both of these numbers. Once this has been done in a damping ring for example, great care must be taken to avoid effective emittance growth in the remainder of the collider. Therefore an effort should be made to measure epsilon, (x and y), as accurately as possible, both during machine development and operationally. One technique used for measuring epsilon is to insert a luminescent screen in the path of the beam and measure the size of the spot of light made as the beam passes with a television camera and some associated electronics. This has advantages over sampling type techniques (such as wire scanners) because it provides full pulse to pulse two-dimensional information.

Nomenclature is given for beamline components in the beam injector of the Stanford Linear Collider. (GHT)