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Title: Wavefront correction for static and dynamic aberrations to within 1 second of the system shot in the NIF Beamlet demonstration facility

Conference ·
OSTI ID:461411

The laser wavefront of the NIF Beamlet demonstration system is corrected for static aberrations with a wavefront control system. The system operates closed loop with a probe beam prior to a shot and has a loop bandwidth of about 3 Hz. However, until recently the wavefront control system was disabled several minutes prior to the shot to allow time to manually reconfigure its attenuators and probe beam insertion mechanism to shot mode. Thermally-induced dynamic variations in gas density in the Beamlet main beam line produce significant wavefront error. After about 5-8 seconds, the wavefront error has increased to a new, higher level due to turbulence- induced aberrations no longer being corrected- This implies that there is a turbulence-induced aberration noise bandwidth of less than one Hertz, and that the wavefront controller could correct for the majority of turbulence-induced aberration (about one- third wave) by automating its reconfiguration to occur within one second of the shot, This modification was recently implemented on Beamlet; we call this modification the t{sub 0}-1 system.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
461411
Report Number(s):
UCRL-JC-124858; CONF-9610225-20; ON: DE97051941; TRN: 97:010159
Resource Relation:
Conference: 2. annual solid state lasers for applications to inertial confinement fusion (ICF), Paris (France), 22-25 Oct 1996; Other Information: PBD: Oct 1996
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English