Laser Fusion

Pre 1970:

Laser fusion became a focus of the Rochester work in the late 1960s. Classified meetings were held at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) including participation by R. Kidder, J. Nuckolls, J. Dawson, and M. Lubin.

“…Ray Kidder, who I can’t say enough about, had bootlegged and built at Livermore really the first high-power disk amplifier system [long-path laser]-multipass amplifier-to generate really high powers. Now, it didn’t work too well. But, it was the first hands-on experience that people were getting with a really high-power system.”

-M. Lubin interview with L. Bromberg (Laser History Project), 1987.

Show here is a 38-mm rod amplifier