The Novette Laser Facility: a Step in the Evolution of High-Power Laser Systems
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Energy and Technology Review ~awrence Livermore National Laboratory January 1985 The Novette Laser Facility: A Step in the Evolution of High-Power Laser Systems Work with the recently dismantled Novette laser, LLNL's flexible, high-energy-density experimental facility, has profoundly affected our understanding of laser-plasma coupling phenomena. Novette was the first in the Laboratory's series of successively more powerful and complex laser systems to incorporate full-power harmonic conversion of laser light in nonlinear birefringent media, and with it we probed the details of the design for the Nova laser. For further information contact In the course of inertial-confinement system in the evolving series of Kenneth R. Manes (415) 422-0681. fusion (ICF) research at LLNL, we have Laboratory lasers was designed to exploit designed and built a series of the knowledge gained through successively more powerful and complex experiments with its predecessor. laser systems: Janus, Cyclops, Argus, The Novette laser was the first to Shiva, Novette, and soon the next incorporate full-power harmonic generation, Nova. All of these laser upconversion in order to test the systems used or will use chains of hypothesis that short-wavelength laser neodymium-glass amplifiers (in the form pulses couple energy more efficiently to of scaled modules), and they all share target plasmas than longer ones do. the same fundamental design, called Thus, the Novette laser provided MOPA-a Master Oscillator driving a a flexible, high-energy-density single-pass Power Amplifier. Each experimental facility to bridge the gap 10 DEFENSE PROGRAMS between the Shiva and Nova lasers, theoretical and experimental studies have while allowing us to probe the details of indicated that coupling and, therefore, the Nova design. In the late summer of target performance would improve 1984, its work completed, the Novette significantly when the wavelength of the laser was dismantled and its amplifier incident laser light was shortened below chains were moved into the Nova laser 1 pm. Accordingly, the Nova laser is bay. designed for the harmonic conversion of In inertial confinement fusion, tiny but the fundamental infrared laser pulse to powerful thermonuclear explosions are green or to near-ultraviolet light before produced by focusing a laser beam on the beam is focused onto the target. microscopic (0.1 to 5.0 mm) deuterium The Novette laser produced these tritium (D-T) targets. Because the laser wavelengths and also, for its final ICF beam is very intense (102 to 104 TW/cm2), experimental series, the fourth-harmonic it generates a dense plasma where it ultraviolet light (0.263 pm). impinges on the target material. This plasma interacts strongly with the laser ovette Design beam. Each of the Novette laser's two As recently as 1980, opinion was still N beam lines was optically divided as to the relative effect veness of similar to a Nova laser arm, the different lasers (and laser wavelengths) emerging beams having diameters of as fusion drivers. Most evidence now 74 cm (see Fig. 2) . Harmonic conversion favors a green (0.526-pm) to near took place in two unique mosaic arrays ultraviolet (0.351-pm) laser. of type II potassium dihydrogen The Novette laser fulfilled the need phosphate (KDP) crystals. The two for a short-wavelength source for approximately 4.5-TW green (2OJ) pulses multikilojoule target experiments. We were concentrated onto targets by two combined components from the earlier 74-cm-aperture £/4 doublet lenses. Shiva laser, until Novette the world's Because the two pulses arrived at the most powerful, with borrowed parts target within 5 ps of each other, a typical delivered for the Nova laser (our target could be irradiated simultaneously Fig. 1 100-TW -class laser system, which from two sides by approximately 9 kJ in reached its construction completion 1 ns. Artist's rendering of the Novette target area showing the refurbished Shiva tar milestone on December 19, 1984, by We devoted about half of the Novette get chamber and the final frequency firing all ten beams, frequency converted laser's experimental time to plasma conversion crystals and focusing-lens to 0.351 pm, into the largest chamber). physics studies, whose aim was to assemblies. We assembled the Novette laser on an accelerated schedule in an existing building adjacent to the new Nova laboratory. Construction began in January 1982, and the system was activated in 13 months. The facility included a Nova-style control system, the refurbished Shiva target chamber, and a full suite of target diagnostics (Fig. 1). The Novette laser produced 18-kJ, I-ns, infrared (1 OJ) pulses that were frequency doubled to green light (2 OJ) and focused onto targets. During 1983 and 1984, we gathered a large body of data on the performance of the Novette laser as a system. In this article, we compare calculations with measurements taken at several locations within the laser chains. Our work with the Novette laser has profoundly affected our understanding of laser-plasma coupling phenomena. Both 11 develop a better understanding of short energies of up to 1 J each. At the master wavelength, laser-plasma interaction oscillator, the laser beam was spatially phenomena relevant to inertial Gaussian with a diameter of 1.5 mm confinement fusion. The balance of the at 10% of its maximum intensity. As experimental time was divided between the beam proceeded through the high-density implosion research and the preamplifier, it was expanded and passed very successful laboratory x-ray laser through an aperture so that only the experiments. Finally, laser data were smoothest central region exited the obtained to help define the Nova laser preamplifier and was presented to each configuration. of the arms. Figure 2 is an optical schematic that In each arm, seven beam-expanding shows the Novette laser's relation to spatial filters separated stages consisting other LLNL MOPA-system architectures. of rod and disk amplifiers with We have gradually improved the increasingly larger apertures. The peak fundamental design by using output flux from each stage was components that were increasingly chosen to be near its operating limit. reliable, efficient, damage resistant, Propagation was controlled by these and cost-effective. Along the way, we spatial filters to minimize local intensity have learned a great deal about the fluctuations and to keep the maximum propagation of high-power laser pulses laser flux below optical-damage limits. in the dielectric media typically found By maximizing the fill factor, or in neodymium-glass amplifier chains. efficiency, with which each amplifier's We based the design of the Novette aperture was used, we minimized test bed on the requirements of the Nova the peak laser flux that each optical laser. Because the output of a repeatable, component had to tolerate to produce high-quality master oscillator is typically a given output. about 10 - 4 J, the Nova power amplifier The principal design constraint on 9 must provide a gain of 10 . In the the maximum energy delivered by each Novette laser, therefore, the weak pulse stage is the damage threshold of its produced by the master oscillator first optical components, which depends, passed through a preamplifier consisting in tum, on the purity of the optical of crystalline and glass-rod amplifiers, medium, the optical surface, the pulse beam-expanding spatial filters, and duration, and the wavelength of the laser beam-splitting elements, to produce two light. To raise the damage threshold in parallel, spatially uniform beams with the Novette laser, components such as Master osc:IIator 3.75 9.4 9.4 Janus size Argus, Cyclops, Shiva size Nova, 74 cm Novette size 31.5-cm disk amplifiers !2;] n-cm aperture amplifier Fig. 2 t><l Spatial filter Each of the Novette laser's two beam lines was optically similar to a Nova VI Faraday isolator (14 arm. This optical schematic shows the focus relationship of the system architectures a Mirror KDP doubling array ~ lens (doublet) constructed at LLNl. 1.0S·J.Lm beam dump 12 DEFENSE PROGRAMS spatial filter lenses, which in previous array, while the lower band represents laser systems were antireflection-coated an estimate of the highest (damage with dielectric films, were replaced with limited) 0.53-.um on-target energy versus optics treated by a neutral solution laser pulse duration. process.] Such optics not only display Our designs for each amplifier stage excellent transmission (typically greater of the laser were based on damage risk than 99.5%) but also have surface assessments made using MALAPROP damage thresholds of 12 to 16 J/cm2 for computations. The components most I-ns pulses, approaching those of the vulnerable to laser-induced damage were polished glass substrate. We tested this the input lenses to the last two spatial new technology on the large-diameter filters . Neutral-solution, antireflection spatial-filter lenses, windows, and target coatings on these optics have survived focusing lenses of the Novette laser in unharmed after being subjected to more preparation for the Nova laser. than 100 shots of I-ns duration with A major design goal for both the average fluxes of 5 to 7 J/cm 2 and peak Novette and Nova lasers was to fluxes twice as large. Indeed, bulk maximize the output energy without damage as a result of microscopic damaging optics. We would like to metallic inclusions has set the practical propagate an ideal beam that exactly fills flux limit for these lenses. the power amplifier with an output flux just below the damage limit. However, armonie Conversion such a beam does not propagate for any The conversion of laser light useful distance without diffraction of the H into its harmonics in nonlinear beam edges, which leads to constructive birefringent media is a well-known interference and regions of excessive process that was first demonstrated more optical flux.