Alignment and diagnostics on the National Ignition Facility laser system

Conference · Thu Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1999

OSTI ID:9862

Bliss, E S ^[1]; Boege, S J; Boyd, B; Demaret, R D; Feldman, M; Gates, A J; Holdener, F R; Hollis, J; Knopp, C F; McCarville, T J; Miller-Kamm,; Rivera, W E; Salmon, J T; Severyn, J R; Thompson, C E; J, V; Wang, D Y; Zacharias, R A

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1. LLNL

The NIF laser system will be capable of delivering 1.8MJ of 351nm energy in 192 beams. Diagnostics instruments must measure beam energy, power vs. time, wavefront quality, and beam intensity profile to characterize laser performance. Alignment and beam diagnostics are also used to set the laser up for the high power shots and to isolate problems when performance is less than expected. Alignment and beam diagnostics are multiplexed to keep the costs under control. At the front-end the beam is aligned and diagnosed in an input sensor package. The output 1053nm beam is sampled by collecting a 0.1% reflection from an output beam sampler and directing it to the output sensor package (OSP). The OSP also gets samples from final focus lens reflection and samples from the transport spatial filter pinhole plane. The output 351nm energy is measured by a calorimeter collecting the signal from an off-axis diffractive beam-sampler. Detailed information on the focused beam in the high-energy target focal plane region is gathered in the precision diagnostics. This paper describes the design of the alignment and diagnostics on the NIF laser system.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Defense Programs (DP) (US)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 9862
• Report Number(s): UCRL-JC-134596; 39DP02000; 39DP02000
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ALIGNMENT
CALORIMETERS
DESIGN
DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES
LASERS
PERFORMANCE
REFLECTION
SAMPLERS
TARGETS
US NATIONAL IGNITION FACILITY