On December 5, 2022, an indirect drive fusion implosion on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) achieved a target gain G_{target} of 1.5. This is the first laboratory demonstration of exceeding "scientific breakeven" (or G_{target}>1) where 2.05 MJ of 351 nm laser light produced 3.1 MJ of total fusion yield, a result which significantly exceeds the Lawson criterion for fusion ignition as reported in a previous NIF implosion [H. Abu-Shawareb et al. (Indirect Drive ICF Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 075001 (2022)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.129.075001]. This achievement is the culmination of more than five decades of research and gives proof that laboratory fusion, based on fundamental physics principles, is possible. This Letter reports on the target, laser, design, and experimental advancements that led to this result.

The possibility of imploding small capsules to produce mini-fusion explosions was explored soon after the first thermonuclear explosions in the early 1950s. Various technologies have been pursued to achieve the focused power and energy required for laboratory-scale fusion. Each technology has its own challenges. For example, electron and ion beams can deliver the large amounts of energy but must contend with Coulomb repulsion forces that make focusing these beams a daunting challenge. The demonstration of the first laser in 1960 provided a new option. Energy from laser beams can be focused and deposited within a small volume; the challenge became whether a practical laser system can be constructed that delivers the power and energy required while meeting all other demands for achieving a high-density, symmetric implosion. The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is the laser designed and built to meet the challenges for study of high-energy-density physics and inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions. This paper describes the architecture, systems, and subsystems of NIF. It describes how they partner with each other to meet these new, complex demands and describes how laser science and technology were woven together to bring NIF into reality.

After every other failure mode has been considered, in the end, the high-performance limit of all lasers is set by optical damage. The demands of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) pushed lasers designed as ICF drivers into this limit from their very earliest days. The first ICF lasers were small, and their pulses were short. Their goal was to provide as much power to the target as possible. Typically, they faced damage due to high intensity on their optics. As requests for higher laser energy, longer pulse lengths, and better symmetry appeared, new kinds of damage also emerged, some of them anticipated and others unexpected. This paper will discuss the various types of damage to large optics that had to be considered, avoided to the extent possible, or otherwise managed as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser was designed, fabricated, and brought into operation. It has been possible for NIF to meet its requirements because of the experience gained in previous ICF systems and because NIF designers have continued to be able to avoid or manage new damage situations as they have appeared.

We have found the local temporal shot-to-shot variation of the NIF high-energy laser system to be relatively constant (~3.4% to 4.2% of the mean fluence). We have developed a statistical model that predicts the maximum fluence distribution any particular location will be exposed to after N independent shots (the so-called max-of-N fluence distribution) using the measured shot-to-shot variance; this method allows for an estimate of maximum optics fluence exposure.

Local temporal shot-to-shot variation of a high-energy laser system is measured in order to model the maximum fluence that any location on the optic will be exposed to after N shots (Max-of-N). We constructed a model to derive an equivalent-Max-of-N fluence distribution from a series of shots of differing energy and contrast in order to calculate damage initiation and optics lifetime. This model allows prediction for Max-of-N effects when direct measurements of the fluence distribution are not available. Comparison to different laser systems will be presented in order to gain insight as to the physical origins of the Max-of-N effect.

We have developed preliminary conceptual laser system designs for the Laser ICF (Inertial Confinement Fusion) Fission Energy (LIFE) application. Our approach leverages experience in high-energy Nd:glass laser technology developed for the National Ignition Facility (NIF), 1 along with high-energy-class diodepumped solid-state laser (HEC-DPSSL) technology developed for the DOE’s High Average Power Laser (HAPL) Program and embodied in LLNL’s Mercury laser system. 2 We present laser system designs suitable for both indirect-drive, hot spot ignition and indirect-drive, fast ignition targets. Main amplifiers for both systems use laser-diode-pumped Nd:glass slabs oriented at Brewster’s angle, as in NIF, but the slabs are much thinner to allow for cooling by high-velocity helium gas as in the Mercury laser system. We also describe a plan to mass-produce pump-diode lasers to bring diode costs down to the order of $0.01 per Watt of peak output power, as needed to make the LIFE application economically attractive.

High-power pulsed lasers can deliver sufficient energy on inertial-confinement fusion (ICF) time scales (0.1 to 10 ns) to heat and compress deuterium-tritium fuel to fusionreaction conditions. Several laser systems have been examined, including Nd:glass, C0 2, KrF, and 12, for their ICF applicability. A great deal of developmental effort has been applied to the Nd:glass laser and the C0 2 gas laser systems; these systems now deliver >10 4 J and 20 X 10 W to ICF targets. We are constructing the Nova Nd:glass laser at LLNL to provide >100 kj and >100 X 10 W of l-»m radiation for fusion experimenta­ tion in the mid-1980s. For ICF target gain > 100 times the laser input, we expect that the laser driver must deliver ~3 to 5 MJ of energy on a time scale of 10 to 20 ns. In this paper we review the technological status of fusion-laser systems and outline approaches to con­ structing high-power pulsed laser drivers.

Abstract We have developed preliminary conceptual laser system designs for the Laser ICF (Inertial Confinement Fusion) Fission Energy (LIFE) application. Our approach leverages experience in high-energy Nd: glass laser technology developed for the National Ignition Facility (NIF)1, along with high-energy-class diode-pumped solid-state laser (HEC-DPSSL) technology developed for the DOE’s High Average Power Laser (HAPL) Program and embodied LLNL’s Mercury laser system.2 We present laser system designs suitable for both indirect-drive, hot spot ignition and indirect-drive, fast ignition targets. Main amplifiers for both systems use laser-diode-pumped Nd:glass slabs oriented at Brewster’s angle, as in NIF, but the slabs are much thinner to allow for cooling by high-velocity helium gas as in the Mercury laser system. We also describe a plan to mass-produce pump-diode lasers to bring diode costs down to the order of $0.01 per Watt of peak output power, as needed to make the LIFE application economically attractive.

The conditions under which optical materials are susceptible to laser-induced damage is a topic which has been the subject of considerable study. Laser parameters such as wavelength and temporal pulse duration have been studied extensively. Until this work the effect of temporal pulse shape has not been considered. The authors present here data from a simple single-parameter model and a supporting experiment which predicts that a flat-in-time pulse will produce damage at approximately 80% of the fluence of a Gaussian pulse of the same duration.

Laser conditioning, i.e. pre-exposure to less than damaging laser fluence, has been shown to improve the damage resistance of KDP/DKDP frequency conversion crystals. We have extended our damage model, small absorbing precursors with a distribution of sizes, to describe various damage related properties such as damage density and effects of laser conditioning in crystals. The model assumes the rate limiting process for both initiation and conditioning depends on temperature and that separate threshold temperatures exist for either conditioning or damage initiation to occur. This is reasonable in KDP/DKDP since the melting temperature is far below the temperatures associated with plasma formation and damage events. This model is capable of accounting for some recently observed damage-conditioning behaviors.

The Feit-Rubenchik size-selection damage model has been extended in a number of ways. More realistic thermal deposition profiles have been added. Non-spherical shapes (rods and plates) have been considered, with allowance for their orientation dependence. Random variations have been taken into account. An explicit form for the change of absorptivity with precursor size has been added. A simulation tool called GIDGET has been built to allow adjustment of the many possible parameters in order to fit experimental data of initiation density as a function of fluence and pulse duration. The result is a set of constraints on the possible properties of initiation precursors.

We summarize recent investigations of the density and morphology of bulk damage in KDP crystals as a function of pulse duration, temporal profile, wavelength, and energy fluence. As previously reported by Runkel et al.(1), we also find that the size of bulk damage sites varies roughly linearly with pulse duration for pulses between 1 ns and 9 ns. However this trend no longer applies at pulse durations below 1 ns. Experiments measuring the damage density and size distribution as a function of wavelength confirm many previous works which indicated a strong dependence of damage density with wavelength. However, we also find that the size of damage sites is relatively insensitive to wavelength. Further we see damage due to Flat-In-Time (FIT) pulses has different pulse length and fluence dependence than Gaussian pulses. We demonstrate that a simple thermal diffusion model can account for observed differences in damage densities due to square and Gaussian temporally shaped pulses of equal fluence. Moreover, we show that the key laser parameter governing size of the bulk damage sites is the length of time the pulse remains above a specific intensity. The different dependences of damage density and damage site size on laser parameters suggest different absorption mechanisms early and late in the damaging pulse.

The performance of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), especially in terms of laser focusability, will be determined by several key factors. One of these key factors is the optical specification for the thousands of large aperture optics that will comprise the 192 beamlines, We have previously reported on the importance of the specification of the power spectral density (PSD) on NIF performance. Recently, we have been studying the importance of long spatial wavelength (>33 mm) phase errors on focusability. We have concluded that the preferred metric for determining the impact of these long spatial wavelength phase errors is the rms phase gradient. In this paper, we outline the overall approach to NIF optical specifications, detail the impact of the rms phase gradient on NIF focusability, discuss its trade-off with the PSD in determining the spot size, and review measurements of optics similar to those to be manufactured for NIF.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser will use a 192- beam multi-pass architecture capable of delivering several MJ of UV energy in temporal phase formats varying from sub- ns square to 20 ns precisely-defined high-contrast shapes. Each beam wavefront will be subjected to effects of optics inhomogeneities, figuring errors, mounting distortions, prompt and slow thermal effects from flashlamps, driven and passive air-path turbulence, and gravity-driven deformations. A 39-actuator intra-cavity deformable mirror, controlled by data from a 77-lenslet Hartman sensor will be used to correct these wavefront aberrations and thus to assure that stringent farfield spot requirements are met. We have developed numerical models for the expected distortions, the operation of the adaptive optics systems, and the anticipated effects on beam propagation, component damage, frequency conversion, and target-plane energy distribution. These models have been extensively validated against data from LLNL's Beamlet, and Amplab lasers. We review the expected beam wavefront aberrations and their potential for adverse effects on the laser performance, describe our model of the corrective system operation, and display our predictions for corrected-beam operation of the NIF laser.

We discuss aspects of adaptive optics optimization for large fusion laser systems such as the 192-arm National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. By way of example we considered the discrete actuator deformable mirror and Hartmann sensor system used on the Beamlet laser. Beamlet is a single-aperture prototype of the 11-0-5 slab amplifier design for NIF, and so we expect similar optical distortion levels and deformable mirror correction requirements. We are now in the process of developing a numerically efficient object oriented C++ language implementation of our adaptive optics and wavefront sensor code, but this code is not yet operational. The results shown below are based instead on the prototype algorithms, coded-up in an integrated array processing computer language.

The design of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is the result of optimization studies that maximized laser performance and reliability within a restricted cost budget. We modeled the laser using a suite of tools that included a 1D propagation code, a frequency conversion code, a 2D ray trace code for calculating the gain profile, thermo- mechanical codes for calculating the pump-induced distortions in the slabs, a database giving estimates of optics bulk/finish quality, and costing models of the laser/building. By exploiting parallel processing, we were able to consider approximately 750 possible designs per hour using a cluster of 28 workstations. For our optimization studies, we used a temporally shaped (ICF indirect drive) pulse producing at least 2.2 MJ and 600 TW in a 600 micron diameter hole at the target entrance plane. We varied as many as 20 design variables (e.g., slab counts, slab thickness, Nd concentration, amplifier pulse length) and applied as many as 40 constants (e.g., flashlamp voltage and fluence damage/filamentation at various points in the chain). We did not vary the number of beamlets (fixed at 192 or the aperture (fixed at 40 cm). We used three different optimization approaches: a variable metric algorithm, an exhaustive grid search of more than 50,000 candidate designs, and a parabolic interpolation scheme. All three approaches gave similar results. Moreover, a graphical analysis of the parameter scan data (analogous to sorting and pruning designs using a spreadsheet) has allowed us to understand why the optimizers eliminated alternate designs. The most inexpensive main-switch-boot slab configuration meeting the mission requirements and satisfying all constraints was 9-5-3. The cost of this configuration is approximately $DOL10M less than the 9-5-5 conceptual design. However, the NIF Project has chosen a slightly more expensive 11-0-7 configuration for continued Title I engineering because of its similarity to the Beamlet 11-0-5 design and a lower B-integral.

An exhaustive set of Beamlet and Nova laser system simulations were performed over a wide range of power levels in order to gain understanding about the statistical trends in Nova and Beamlet's experimental data sets, and to provide critical validation of propagation tools and design `rules' applied to the 192-arm National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Design optimization of the 1 .8 MJ, 500 TW National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser has proceeded with the use of a suite of new computational models. Cost-effectiveness of alternative fundamental architectures was considered using CHAINOP. A very fast, lumped-element energetics code, CHA1NOP includes an extensive cost database, a runtime choice of optimization algorithm, and a set of heuristic rules for diffraction and nonlinear effects and for operational constraints. Its ability to flexibly consider many alternative configurations at a few seconds per chain made it the ideal "first-cut" tool for narrowing the investigation to the switched, multi-pass cavity architecture that was chosen.

The effect of a change in the system parameters upon the one micron Baser's power, energy and beam quality will be discussed. The parameters varied in the study were the optical losses, the gain and gain profile of the amplifiers. Additionally, the effect upon power, energy and beam quality as a function of slab count and position will be presented.

The near field irradiance parameters at the interface between the one micron laser, the UV generation, and transport subsystem will be discussed. The test results obtained from the Beamlet and Nova lasers used to validate the mathematical models will be presented.