Design of 60-kJ SG-III laser facility and related technology development

The SG-III laser facility has been proposed to produce 1-ns, 60-kJ blue light pulses for IC Application at China Academy of Engineering Physics. The baseline design suggests that the SG-III be a 64-beam laser facility grouped into eight bundles with clear optical apertures of 30cm by 30cm. The facility consists of multiple subsystems, including the front end, preamplification and injection section, main amplifiers, beam transport and alignment system, switchyard, target area, integrated computer control, and beam diagnostics. The amplifier column in each bundle contains eight beamlets stacked 4 high by 2 wide. Great progress has been made in developing key laser technologies, such as integrated fiber optics, binary optics, adaptive optics, four-pass amplification, large aperture plasma electrode switches, rapid growth of KDP, brand-new laser glass, long flashlamps, precision manufacturing of large optics and metallized self-heating capacitors. Codes have been developed and numerical simulations have been conducted for the optical design of the facility. The design of the Technical Integration Line of 2 by 2 segmented array as a prototype module of SG-II has been optimized and the construction will soon get started.