LLE successfully developed and tested a technique to fill room-temperature glass targets with deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel to 10 atm as required for diagnostic purposes on the National Ignition Facility (NIF).
Shown here is operators mount targets in the Hoppe Target Mounting Station (Sal Scarantino, Steve Noyes, and Michael Koch)
Novel gas membranes that demonstrate variable permeability when illuminated with different wavelengths of light were developed at LLE’s Optical Materials Laboratory. These are based on light-sensitive liquid crystals, synthesized at LLE, and absorbed into micropores of a thin plastic sheet.
Shown here is one of the developers, Eric Glowacki, preparing a membrane for testing
LLE, in collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), demonstrated a key shock-timing technique for ignition targets at the NIF. This technique is critical for optimizing the drive profiles for high-performance ICF capsules, which are compressed by multiple precisely timed shock waves. These results provide confidence that shock velocity and timing can be measured in NIF ignition targets, thereby optimizing these critical parameters.
Shown here is a sketch of shock-timing target
The first Omega Laser Facility Users Group Workshop was held, attracting 110 researchers from 29 universities and laboratories and four countries. The purpose of the workshop was to facilitate communication and exchanges among the individual users and between the users and LLE. Almost 50 presentations highlighting ongoing and proposed research experiments were given, primarily by the 32 students and postdoctoral candidates in attendance.
The last of the spare NIF polarizer optics were coated in the 72-inch chamber. This marked the completion of an eight-year NIF large-optic coating production phase carried out by OMAN, the LLE optical manufacturing group.
Shown here is OMAN’s last NIF polarizer run
On 16 September 2008, an OMEGA EP beamline irradiates a target with an energy of 1415 J in an 11-ps laser pulse. This energy is more than a factor-of-2 higher than any previously obtained with a short-pulse laser system.
OMEGA EP target shot
The OMEGA EP Laser System was completed on time and within budget and initial experiments were started in the fourth quarter of FY08.
This image is of the First UV shot on target on OMEGA EP
On 16 May 2008, Dr. Robert McCrory, Vice Provost, Director, and CEO of LLE, along with special guests, which included University of Rochester President Joel Seligman and University Provost Ralph Kuncl, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, U.S. Congressman Thomas Reynolds, and Under Secretary for Nuclear Security for the U.S. Department of Energy Thomas D’Agostino, dedicated the new OMEGA EP laser at the Robert L. Sproull Center for Ultra High Intensity Laser Research at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics.
OMEGA EP added four ultrahigh-intensity laser beams to LLE. The highest-energy laser in the world at the time, LLE’s lasers can unleash more than a petawatt of power onto a target just a millimeter across. Working in conjunction with the original 60-beam OMEGA, OMEGA EP will open the door to the development of advanced ignition techniques.
Image shown is Senator Charles Schumer giving the keynote address at the dedication ceremony
LLE completed a study using the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in the x-ray-drive configuration for direct-drive-ignition experiments. The study focused on implementing the standard polar-direct-drive (PDD) illumination scheme, which uses judicious repointing of the NIF beams to minimize illumination perturbations that arise from the absence of equatorial beams in the x-ray-drive laser configuration. The conclusion of the study validated the polar-direct-drive concept using numerical simulations and experiments on OMEGA for ignition on the NIF.
Isodensity contours (color) and ion-temperature contours (white lines) of the implosion of a NIF wetted-foam, polar-drive-ignition target
