Electro-optic transient imaging instrumentation development at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: Implications for SSC instrumentation development

Over the last decade, the underground weapons physics laboratories fielded by LLNL's Nuclear Test and Experimental Sciences (NTES) program have experienced marked change. This change is characterized by a phenomenal growth in the amount of data returned per event. These techniques have been developed as a result of the severe demands placed upon transient instrumentation by the physics requirements of our underground nuclear laboratories. The detector front-ends must quickly detect, process and transmit a large volume of data to recording stations located approximately 1 km from the event. In a recent event, the detector front-ends successfully handled data at a prompt rate of approximately 13 Terabits/sec. Largely, this advance can be attributed directly to the increased use of electro-optic techniques. These highly-parallel high-bandwidth imaging instrumentation systems developed for the test program may have a lot to offer the high-energy physics community tackling the challenge of the unprecedented luminosity and fidelity demands at the SSC. In what follows, we discuss details of a few of our prompt instrumentation techniques and compare these capabilities to the detector requirements for the challenging physics at the SSC. 5 refs., 3 figs.