The Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory Helios laser fusion system focuses eight powerful CO2 laser beams onto a tiny (typical 300-μm-diam) DT-filled target. The focusing is accomplished inside a vacuum chamber that is 3.5 m in diameter by 3.5 m high. The target positioning system places the target to within 5.0 μm of a predetermined point in space. This is accomplished by using two orthogonal autocollimating telescopes to determine the center of a precisely located surrogate sphere. The target is then placed at the common focal point of the two telescopes. The Helios target positioning system has been meeting or exceeding its design requirements for about one year with minimal maintenance. It has proven to be a very effective system.

Date Published: 13 November 1980
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 0190, Los Alamos Conference on Optics 1979, (13 November 1980); doi: 10.1117/12.957742

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0190:
Los Alamos Conference on Optics 1979
Donald H. Liebenberg, Editor(s)