Recent advances in flashlamp-pumped neodymium-glass amplifiers

Summary form only given. We performed both modeling and experiments to develop performance-enhancing features for flashlamp-pumped, neodymium-glass, Brewster-angle-slab amplifiers. Features developed included improved flashlamp-reflector shapes for increasing pumping efficiency and improving gain uniformity; sol-gel anti-reflective coatings for increasing pumping efficiency; tarnish-resistant silver for improving gain stability and reducing operating costs; and turbulent-gas cooling of the flashlamps for accelerating thermal recovery and shot rate. These features were evaluated on a multisegment amplifier with eight 40-cm-square apertures arranged in a four-aperture high by two-aperture-wide matrix This amplifier was a prototype for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) now under construction at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.