A team of five undergraduate seniors from the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Rochester performed the design and fabrication of original parts needed for the BBReflect-EP shot day at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics on April 16, 2024. The hardware provided by the students allowed white light from a shock-heated backlighter to be relayed to the primary sample. The time-resolved reflected spectrum was then collected with the streaked optical pyrometer spectrometer (SOP-Spec) diagnostic. The primary goal of this day—to establish this new diagnostic platform, capable of measuring broadband optical reflectivity of laser-compressed samples on OMEGA EP—was accomplished in large part due to the exceptional efforts of these undergraduate students. Their work was part of a senior engineering capstone project, which was supervised by LLE assistant scientist Neel Kabadi and UR Mechanical Engineering professor Chris Muir. Engineer Jarrett Shamlian, the OMEGA EP operations staff, and many others at LLE were instrumental in the success of this project. Looking ahead, three additional shot days over the next year will utilize this newly developed platform. Well done to all!
