Construction of the DELTA Laser in Gavett Hall

1971:

In 1971, LLE began building DELTA, the first multibeam laser at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. As a four-beam facility, DELTA had many unique features, including large water-cooled rod amplifiers, superconducting Faraday rotators, cryogenic deuterium targets, frequency conversion to the second harmonic, pulse shaping, and liquid-cooled slab amplifiers.

Construction of the DELTA laser began with the emptying of a large room in the ground floor of Gavett Hall, shown here.