Frequency converter development for the National Ignition Facility

Conference · Fri Oct 30 04:00:00 EST 1998

OSTI ID:5792

Auerbach, J M ^[1]; Barker, C E; Burkhart, S C; Couture, S A; DeYoreo, J J; Hackel, L A; Hibbard, R L; Liou, L W; Norton, M A; Wegner, P J; Whitman, P A

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1. LLNL

The design of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) incorporates a type I/type II third harmonic generator to convert the 1.053-{micro}m fundamental wavelength of the laser amplifier to a wavelength of 0.351 {micro}m for target irradiation. To understand and control the tolerances in the converter design, we have developed a comprehensive error budget that accounts for effects that are known to influence conversion efficiency, including variations in amplitude and phase of the incident laser pulse, temporal bandwidth of the incident laser pulse, crystal surface figure and bulk non-uniformities, angular alignment errors, Fresnel losses, polarization errors and crystal temperature variations. The error budget provides specifications for the detailed design of the NIF final optics assembly (FOA) and the fabrication of optical components. Validation is accomplished through both modeling and measurement, including full-scale Beamlet tests of a 37-cm aperture frequency converter in a NIF prototype final optics cell. The prototype cell incorporates full-perimeter clamping to support the crystals, and resides in a vacuum environment as per the NIF design.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Defense Programs (DP)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 5792
• Report Number(s): UCRL-JC-129725; DP0212000; ON: DE00005792
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
Frequency Converters
Harmonic Generation
Nonlinear Optics
US National Ignition Facility