National Ignition Facility alignment and wavefront control

Richard A. Zacharias; Neil Reginald Beer; Erlan S. Bliss; Scott C. Burkhart; Simon J. Cohen; Steven B. Sutton; R. Lewis Van Atta; Scott E. Winters; Joseph T. Salmon; Christopher J. Stolz; David C. Pigg; Timothy J. Arnold

doi:10.1117/12.538469

28 May 2004 National Ignition Facility alignment and wavefront control

Richard A. Zacharias, Neil Reginald Beer, Erlan S. Bliss, Scott C. Burkhart, Simon J. Cohen, Steven B. Sutton, R. Lewis Van Atta, Scott E. Winters, Joseph T. Salmon, Christopher J. Stolz, David C. Pigg, Timothy J. Arnold

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 5341, Optical Engineering at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory II: The National Ignition Facility; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.538469
Event: Lasers and Applications in Science and Engineering, 2004, San Jose, Ca, United States

Abstract

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a stadium-sized facility containing a 192-beam, 1.8-Megajoule, 500-Terawatt, ultraviolet laser system. High-energy-density and inertial confinement fusion physics experiments require the ability to precisely align and focus pulses with single beam energy up to 20KJ in a few nanoseconds onto mm-sized targets. NIF's alignment control system now regularly provides automatic alignment of the four commissioned beams prior to every NIF shot in approximately 45min., and speed improvements are being implemented. NIF utilizes adaptive optics for wavefront control, which significantly improves the ability to tightly focus each laser beam onto a target. Multiple sources of both static and dynamic aberration are corrected. This presentation provides an overview of the NIF Automatic Alignment and Wavefront Control Systems including the accuracy and target spot size performance achieved.

Citation Download Citation

Richard A. Zacharias, Neil Reginald Beer, Erlan S. Bliss, Scott C. Burkhart, Simon J. Cohen, Steven B. Sutton, R. Lewis Van Atta, Scott E. Winters, Joseph T. Salmon, Christopher J. Stolz, David C. Pigg, and Timothy J. Arnold "National Ignition Facility alignment and wavefront control", Proc. SPIE 5341, Optical Engineering at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory II: The National Ignition Facility, (28 May 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.538469

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