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The Static X-ray Imager (SXI) at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a pinhole camera using a CCD detector to obtain images of hohlraum wall x-ray drive illumination patterns seen through the laser entrance hole (LEH). Carefully chosen filters combined with the CCD response allows recording images in the x-ray range of 3 to 5 keV with 60 µm spatial resolution. The routines used to obtain the apparent size of the backlit LEH, and the location and intensity of beam spots are discussed and compared to predictions. A new soft xray channel centered at 870 eV (near the x-ray peak of a 300 eV temperature ignition hohlraum) is discussed.

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Two static x-ray imagers (SXI) will be used to monitor beam pointing on all target shots in the National Ignition Facility. These pinhole-based instruments will provide time integrated two-dimensional images of target x-ray emissions in the energy range between 2 and 3 keV. These instruments are not DIM based and will view along dedicated lines of sight from near the top and bottom ports of the target chamber. Beams that miss or clip the hohlraum laser-entrance holes will produce x-ray emission on the ends of the hohlraum, indicating improper beam pointing and/or target positioning. The SXIs will also be used to quantify beam focusing and pointing by producing x-ray images of dedicated test targets irradiated by focused beams at precalculated positions. A proposed design is presented, along with supporting data from NOVA target experiments.

The laser light from a single beam transmitted through a plasma is collected by a 3ω transmitted beam diagnostic which is now operational on the Omega Laser Facility at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester [Soures et al., Laser. Part. Beams 11, 317 (1993)]. Transmitted laser light from Beam 30 is collected by a focusing mirror and directed onto a diagnostic platform. The near field of the transmitted light is imaged; the system collects information from twice the original f cone of the beam. Two gated cameras capture the near field image of the transmitted light. The evolution of the beam spray is resolved temporally at 13 spatial positions around the near field. The forward stimulated Raman scattering and forward simulated Brillouin scattering are resolved spectrally and temporally at five independent locations within twice the original f cone. The total transmitted energy is measured in two spectral regions above and below 400nm.