Vendor-based laser damage metrology equipment supporting the National Ignition Facility

Schwartz, Sheldon; Jennings, Richard T.; Kimmons, James F.; Mouser, Ron P.; Weinzapfel, Carolyn L.; Kozlowski, Mark R.; Stolz, Christopher J.; Campbell, Jack H.

doi:10.1117/12.354216

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…• New laser glass compositions [21] , better glass property characterization [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] , advanced glass processing technology [30][31][32][33][34] and continuous optical glass melting methods [35] • Novel glass asphere and flat fabrication technologies using state-of-the-art deterministic figuring methods [5,36,37] • 10× faster KDP/DKDP crystal growth methods [38][39][40] with a better scientific understanding of the growth process [41][42][43][44][45][46] and novel high-capacity precision crystal finishing machines. • Laser damage resistant dielectric mirrors and polarizers manufactured to stringent multi-wavelength reflection and transmission specifications [7,10,11,[47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55] • Environmentally stable, laser damage-resistant, sol-gel anti-reflection coatings [14,[56][57][58][59] • Novel diffractive grating and continuous phase plate design and fabrication metho...…”

Section: Nif Vendors Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

NIF optical materials and fabrication technologies: an overview

et al. 2004

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The high-energy/high-power section of the NIF laser system contains 7360 meter-scale optics. Advanced optical materials and fabrication technologies needed to manufacture the NIF optics have been developed and put into production at key vendor sites. Production rates are up to 20 times faster and per-optic costs 5 times lower than could be achieved prior to the NIF. In addition, the optics manufactured for NIF are better than specification giving laser performance better than the design. A suite of custom metrology tools have been designed, built and installed at the vendor sites to verify compliance with NIF optical specifications. A brief description of the NIF optical wavefront specifications for the glass and crystal optics is presented. The wavefront specifications span a continuous range of spatial scale-lengths from 10 µm to 0.5 m (full aperture). We have continued our multi-year research effort to improve the lifetime (i.e. damage resistance) of bulk optical materials, finished optical surfaces and multi-layer dielectric coatings. New methods for post-processing the completed optic to improve the damage resistance have been developed and made operational. This includes laser conditioning of coatings, glass surfaces and bulk KDP and DKDP and well as raster and full aperture defect mapping systems. Research on damage mechanisms continues to drive the development of even better optical materials.

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Section: Nif Vendors Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

NIF optical materials and fabrication technologies: an overview

et al. 2004

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“…The interferometers are used to test the full-aperture transmitted or reflected wave-front quality of each manufactured optic. In addition, four custom high-power-laser scanning systems were developed and installed for full aperture testing of laser glass and dielectric coatings for potential damage causing defects [27]. Also precision, scanning photometers have been installed at the NIF coating vendors and at LLNL to QA the full-aperture transmission and reflection performance of the coated optics.…”

Section: Manufacturing Nif Large Opticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

<title>The National Ignition Facility: the world's largest optics and laser system</title>

Moses

Campbell

Stolz

et al. 2003

Optical Engineering at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

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The National Ignition Facility, a center for the study of high energy density plasma physics and fusion energy ignition, is currently under construction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The heart of the NIF is a frequency tripled, flashlamp-pumped Nd:glass laser system comprised of 192 independent laser beams. The laser system is capable of generating output energies of 1.8MJ at 351nm and at peak powers of 500 TW in a flexible temporal pulse format. A description of the NIF laser system and its major components is presented. We also discuss the manufacture of nearly 7500 precision large optics required by the NIF including data on the manufactured optical quality vs. specification. In addition, we present results from an on-going program to improve the operational lifetime of optics exposed to high fluence in the 351-nm section of the laser.

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“…16 The laser conditioning process consists of irradiating the optical surface at a low fluence and then slowly ramping to higher fluences. Laser conditioning stations (figure 5), described in detail elsewhere 17 , use a 1-mm size beam that is raster scanned across the optical surface. In addition to improving the laser resistance of the optic, these tools provide rapid feedback to the manufacturing vendor that can be used as part of process quality control.…”

Section: Laser Resistancementioning

confidence: 99%

Metrology of mirrors for the National Ignition Facility

et al. 2004

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The large-aperture (up to 40 cm × 80 cm) mirrors required for the National Ignition Facility have very stringent specifications. The specifications include requirements for transmitted and reflected wavefront over a wide spectral frequency, surface quality, laser resistance, spectral characteristics, etc. In order to validate optic performance, metrology tools were fielded at optic fabrication vendors to assure production control. These tools include interferometers, largearea conditioning stations, and photometers. Of the 1800 large-aperture mirrors required for the NIF, approximately 35% have been completed. This presentation will review the types of large-aperture mirrors used on NIF along with the performance of NIF optics as measured and received from our vendors.

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Vendor-based laser damage metrology equipment supporting the National Ignition Facility

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

NIF optical materials and fabrication technologies: an overview

NIF optical materials and fabrication technologies: an overview

<title>The National Ignition Facility: the world's largest optics and laser system</title>

Metrology of mirrors for the National Ignition Facility

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