Introduction to Proceedings of SPIE: Optical Engineering at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory II

The second annual conference on optical engineering at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) focused entirely on National Ignition Facility (NIF) activities. NIF's 192-beam UV laser system is the world's largest optical and optomechanical system. This past year, a decade-long design, construction, fabrication, and installation effort culminated in the commissioning of the first four laser beams in this 30,000 square meter facility. This flashlamp-pumped Nd:glass laser system is built on a scale unprecedented in laser R&D. Nearly every aspect of the NIF design is unconventional, from the 40 x 40-cm-square size of each beam, to the 40 varieties of telephone-booth-size modular optical assemblies, to the elevated configuration of the 200-m-long, class-100 beamlines that converge on a 10-m-diameter target chamber. A large technical staff and many industrial partners were needed to reach the current state of accomplishment, including development of a number of advanced optical materials and fabrication technologies.