The performance of the Beamlet laser with 1D SSD implemented is investigated. Simulations indicate that the critical issue for laser performance is the amount of additional divergence owing to SSD in comparison to the size of the spatial filter pinholes. At the current +/- 200 (mu) rad pinholes used on Beamlet, simulations indicate that the levels of SSD divergence anticipated for the National Ignition Facility results in a very slight degradation to the near field beam quality. Experiments performed with the Beamlet front end show no degradation to the near field beam with up to 100 (mu) rad of SSD divergence. MEasurements of the smoothing of a far field speckle pattern generated by a phase plate show the expected improvement in contrast with increasing amounts of SSD divergence.

Date Published: 8 December 1997
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 3047, Solid State Lasers for Application to Inertial Confinement Fusion: Second Annual International Conference, (8 December 1997); doi: 10.1117/12.294318

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3047:
Solid State Lasers for Application to Inertial Confinement Fusion: Second Annual International Conference
Michel L. Andre, Editor(s)