Prepulse contrast monitor for the OMEGA driver line

Author

Okishev, A.V. ; Jacobs-Perkins, D. ; Morse, S.F.B. ; Scott, D. ; Seka, W.

Author_Institution

Lab. for Laser Energetics, Rochester Univ., NY, USA

fYear

1999

fDate

28-28 May 1999

Firstpage

406

Lastpage

407

Abstract

Summary form only given. The OMEGA laser system is a 60-beam, 30-kJ UV laser designed and built for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments. Target experiments conducted on the OMEGA facility require extremely high contrast of the main pulse over the prepulse noise. Thus the problem of monitoring and measuring prepulse contrast at the output of the OMEGA driver line becomes very important. It is extremely difficult to measure directly a prepulse contrast of >I0/sup 4/:1 with a photodetector and oscilloscope: driving the photodetector at high output signal may damage the photodetector or oscilloscope. We have developed a two-channel OMEGA driver line contrast monitor based on a light-activated Si switch and a photodiode.

Keywords

fusion reactor instrumentation; laser accessories; laser beams; laser fusion; laser noise; laser variables measurement; neodymium; optical glass; phosphate glasses; solid lasers; 30 kJ; Nd:glass laser; OMEGA driver line; OMEGA facility; OMEGA laser system; Si; UV laser; contrast; high output signal; inertial confinement fusion experiments; light-activated Si switch; monitoring; oscilloscope; photodetector; photodiode; prepulse contrast; prepulse contrast monitor; prepulse noise; pulse; target experiments; two-channel OMEGA driver line contrast monitor; Design engineering; Laser beams; Laser fusion; Laser noise; Monitoring; Optical amplifiers; Optical pulses; Power engineering and energy; Prototypes; Pulse amplifiers;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics, 1999. CLEO '99. Summaries of Papers Presented at the Conference on

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD, USA

Print_ISBN

1-55752-595-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CLEO.1999.834371

Filename

834371