The National ignition facility: Status and performance of the world's largest laser system for the high energy density and inertial confinement fusion

The National ignition facility: Status and performance of the world's largest laser system for the high energy density and inertial confinement fusion

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been designed to support a wide variety of high energy density science (HEDS) experiments, including the demonstration of inertial fusion ignition and burn. To meet this goal, its 192-beam frequency-converted neodymiu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:2008 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics and 2008 Conference on Quantum Electronics and Laser Science pp. 1 - 2
Main Authors: Haynam, C.A., Wegner, P.J., Heestand, G.M., Moses, E., Sacks, R.A., Bowers, M.W., Dixit, S.N., Erbert, G.V., Henesian, M.A., Hermann, M.R., Jancaitis, K.S., Knittel, K., Kohut, T., Manes, K.R., Marshall, C.D., Mehta, N.C., Menapace, J., Murray, J.R., Nostrand, M.C., Orth, C.D., Patterson, R., Saunders, R., Shaw, M.J., Spaeth, M., Sutton, S.B., Williams, W.H., Widmayer, C.C., White, R.K., Yang, S.T., Van Wonterghem, B.M.
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Published: IEEE 01-05-2008
Subjects:
Frequency
Ignition
Inertial confinement
Laboratories
Laser fusion
Laser theory
Optical pulse shaping
Performance evaluation
Power lasers
Shape
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Summary:The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been designed to support a wide variety of high energy density science (HEDS) experiments, including the demonstration of inertial fusion ignition and burn. To meet this goal, its 192-beam frequency-converted neodymium-glass laser must deliver up to 1.8-MJ total energy at 351 nm, with peak power of 500 TW and precisely-controlled temporal pulse shapes spanning two orders of magnitude. Over the past two years, a series of detailed measurements have been performed on one beamline of the NIF laser at 1omega(1053 nm), 2omega(526.5 nm), and 3omega(351 nm). Results of these experiments lend confidence to the expectation that NIF will meet its laser performance design criteria and that it will be able to simultaneously deliver the temporal pulse shaping, focal spot conditioning, peak power, shot-to-shot reproducibility, and power balance required for indirect-drive fusion ignition campaigns. The NIF final optics system has also been demonstrated to be capable of operating at 2omega energies of up to 17.9 kJ/beamline-3.4 MJ for a similarly configured 192-beam NIF. We discuss the status of NIF commissioning, and the nature and results of these measurement campaigns.
ISBN:1557528594
9781557528599
DOI:10.1109/CLEO.2008.4551037