Technical Advances in the Continuous Melting of Phosphate Laser Glass
Continuous melting of phosphate laser glass is now being used for the first time to prepare meter-scale amplifier optics for megajoule lasers. The scale-up to continuous melting from the previous one-at-a-time ''discontinuous'' batch process has allowed for the production of glass at rates more than 20 times faster, 5 times cheaper, and with 2-3 times better optical quality. Almost 8000 slabs of laser glass will be used in high-energy, high-peak-power laser systems that are being designed and built for fusion energy research. The success of this new continuous melting process, which is a result of a six year joint R&D program between government and industry, stems from numerous technical advances which include (1) dehydroxylating the glass to concentrations less than {approx}100 ppm OH; (2) minimizing damage-causing Pt-inclusions; (3) preventing glass fracture; (4) minimizing impurities such as Cu and Fe to <20 ppm; (5) improving forming methods to get high optical homogeneity glass; and (6) developing large aperture quality assurance tools to verify properties of the glass.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 15013228
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-145108; TRN: US200802%%1053
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2nd Conference on Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications, Kyoto, Japan, Sep 09 - Sep 14, 2001
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Continuous melting of phosphate laser glass
Inertial Confinement Fusion Quarterly Report January-March 1999, Volume 9, Number 2