Plasma electrode Pockels cell for the National Ignition Facility

Abstract

The National Ignition Facility (NIF), now under construction at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will be the largest laser fusion facility ever built. The NIF laser architecture is based on a multi-pass power amplifier to reduce cost and maximize performance. A key component in this laser design is an optical switch that closes to trap the optical pulse in the cavity for four gain passes and then opens to divert the optical pulse out of the amplifier cavity. The switch is comprised of a Pockels cell and a polarizer and is unique because it handles a beam that is 40 cm X 40 cm square and allows close horizontal and vertical beam spacing. Conventional Pockels cells do not scale to such large apertures or the square shape required for close packing. Our switch is based on a Plasma-Electrode Pockels Cell (PEPC).

A mid-scale plasma-electrode Pockels cell for the FLUX laser

“…PEPC devices were originally deployed on the Beamlet laser 4 and later on the 192-beam National Ignition Facility (NIF). 5 A high-contrast PEPC device was developed for the OMEGA EP laser for the dual purposes of multipass amplifier switching and isolation from target retroreflections. 6 Additionally, the PEPC technology has been adopted in other highenergy laser facilities such as CEA's Laser Mégajoule, 7 the ShenGuang-II Laser Facility, 8 and others.…”