Page 394 - High Power Laser Handbook

362 So l i d - S t at e La s e r s The National Ignition Facility Laser 363

Figure 14.1 The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is approximately 150 m × 90 m and
seven stories tall. The roof has been “removed” from this aerial photo to show an
engineering rendering of the laser. The two laser bays are shown on the upper left.
The switchyard (in red) is shown on the lower right, as is the spherical target
chamber (in silver) into which the 192 beamlines converge.

cleaning, and preparation for clean transport of all large optics are car-
ried out. Near the bottom right, one can see the spiderweb of beam
tubes that separate the close-packed beams and direct them to the beam
ports distributed around the 10-m-diameter target chamber. In between
are the two large laser bays, each holding 12 bundles of eight 40 cm ×
40 cm beamlines. Altogether, the building is approximately 150 m × 90 m
by seven stories high, about the size of a large sports arena but filled
with high-precision optical components.
Each of the 192-laser beamlines is composed of 36 to 38 large-scale
optics, depending on beamline configuration (see Fig. 14.2), plus hun-
2
dreds of smaller optics, yielding a total area of ~3600 m for all of NIF
optics. The total near-field area of all 192 laser beams is about 22 m .
2
For indirect-drive fusion studies, all 192 beams are focused into a cylin-
drical hohlraum through two circular entrance holes that are each
about 2.5 mm in diameter (see Fig. 14.3). The conditions created in the
hohlraum or in other targets will provide the necessary environment to
explore a wide range of high-energy-density physics experiments,
including laboratory-scale thermonuclear ignition and burn.
We summarize the laser design very briefly in this section. See
Refs. 27 to 34 and the further references in those papers for detailed