Quick Shot

Optical and mechanical engineers at LLE designed the National Ignition Facility (NIF) soft-x-ray imager S600-D in collaboration with scientists and engineers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The S600-D snout uses a single grazing incidence reflection, soft x-ray filters, and a slit aperture to form a 4× magnified, one-dimensional image of target in the 100- to 500-eV photon energy range on the entrance slit of an x-ray streak camera. A dual-channel version of the snout is available for 1-mm soft-x-ray sources, and a single-channel version is available for 3-mm sources. The fixed and modular mechanical design of the S600-D snout relies on the high-precision fabrication of the mechanical components provided by the LLE machinists Scott Gross, Bob McAllister, Steve Lombardo, and Ron Callari, who are shown in the photograph above along with the parts for four of the six snouts that will be delivered to the NIF. A performance qualification shot of the S600-D will be performed on the NIF early this summer.