Abstract

For the past two years, we have routinely used the Nova laser to illuminate inertial-confinement-fusion (ICF) targets with third harmonic (0.35 µm) energies of 20-30 kJ (~600 shots per year). The instantaneous relative power imbalance among the ten Nova beams has been 8 and 15% rms in the peak and "foot," respectively, of temporally shaped pulses and the pointing accuracy on target has been 120 µm rms (40 µrad). In 1989, we began the Precision Nova project with the goals of increasing the routine 3 ω energy on target to 40 kJ, decreasing the power imbalance to 5%, and reducing the target pointing uncertainty to 30 µm. The Precision Nova project also includes target diagnostic and target fabrication tasks. The National Academy of Sciences review committee of ICF has identified this project and associated target experiments to be of highest importance to the national ICF program. This paper will summarize our progress on meeting these goals.

© 1991 Optical Society of America