  In synchrotron machines, the beam extraction is accomplished by a combination
of septa and kicker magnets which deflect the beam from an accelerator into
another. Ideally the kicker field must rise/fall in between the beam bunches.
However, in reality, an intentional beam-free time region (aka "notch") is
created on the beam pulse to assure that the beam can be extracted with minimal
losses. In the case of the Fermilab Booster, the notch is created in the ring
near injection energy by the use of fast kickers which deposit the beam in a
shielded collimation region within the accelerator tunnel. With increasing beam
power it is desirable to create this notch at the lowest possible energy to
minimize activation. The Fermilab Proton Improvement Plan (PIP) initiated an
R&D project to build a laser system to create the notch within a linac beam
pulse at 750 keV. This talk will describe the concept for the laser notcher and
discuss our current status, commissioning results, and future plans.
