The Laser Integration Line (LIL) was first designed as a prototype to validate the concepts and the laser architecture of the Laser MegaJoule (LMJ). The LIL facility is a 4-beam laser representing a quad structure of the LMJ. A set of test campaigns were conducted to safely ramp up laser performance. The main goal was to measure quad-specific features such as beam synchronization and focal spot (size, smoothing contrast ratio or irradiation nonuniformity) versus the LMJ requirements. Following the laser commissioning, the LIL has become a major instrument dedicated to the achievement of plasma physics experiments for the French Simulation Program and was also opened to the academic scientific community. One of the attributes of the LIL facility is to be very flexible to accommodate the requests of plasma physicists during campaigns. The LIL is constantly evolving to best meet the needs of target physicists. Changes made or planned are either to improve the quality of laser beams, or to increase the LIL Energy-Power operating space. To optimize preparation and design of shot campaigns, the LIL performance status has been elaborated. It gives information about the characteristics of the laser in terms of near field and far field, defines the steps to maintain performance, explains how the facility responds to the request, details settings (smoothing, shaping of the focal spot, energy, temporal pulse shaping, beam pointing) and gives the limits in energy and power. In this paper, an overview of the LIL performance is presented.

Date Published: 18 February 2011
PDF: 13 pages
Proc. SPIE 7916, High Power Lasers for Fusion Research, 791610 (18 February 2011); doi: 10.1117/12.874466

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7916:
High Power Lasers for Fusion Research
Abdul A. S. Awwal; A. Mike Dunne; Hiroshi Azechi; Brian E. Kruschwitz, Editor(s)