The National Ignition Facility, construction for which will be completed in March, 2009, will be the highest energy laser ever built. The high temperatures and densities it will produce will enable a number of experiments in inertial confinement fusion and stockpile stewardship, as well as in nuclear astrophysics, X-ray astronomy, laser-plasma interactions, hydrodynamics, and planetary science.

A hohlraum is a cylindrical structure that holds a laser fusion target at the National Ignition Facility. It must be aligned properly for all the 192 laser beams to hit the target and cause a fusion reaction. Video images of the hohlraum are used to align the hohlraum to the required position. A matched filtering based approach is used to locate the circular alignment fiducial of the hohlraum. ...

The authors developed a novel method for phase controlling of a stimulated Brillouin stimulated scattering wave (SBS wave) by a single concave mirror which is the most simple way ever found. The beam combination of small lasers using the SBS-phase conjugate mirrors enables the development of the unlimitedly high energy/high power laser operating at high repetition rate that is the same as the c...

38 LLE Review, Volume 73 A major roadblock to rapid progress in laser fusion is the enormous price of the necessary experimental facilities. Currently under planning or nearing construction are 40-cm-clearaperture (per beam line), 200-or-more-channel, glass-laser systems that will each cost in excess of U.S. $109 in pursuit of laser-fusion research.1 A sizable portion of this price bears witnes...

The weldability of GTD-111 nickel-based superalloy by pulsed Nd:YAG laser welding with an average power of 250 W was studied, and the microstructural evolution and cracking characteristics were also investigated. The solidification cracking of the fusion zone (FZ) and the intergranular liquation cracking in the heat affected zone (HAZ) were observed in the joint. Solidification cracking was cau...

In this work a numerical investigation of transient temperature profile of laser beam welding process is carried out. A 3-D finite element modelling isdevelopedconsidering combined double-ellipsoidalheat source model for both spot and moving heat source. The temperature dependent thermo-physical material property of Ti-6Al-4V alloy isincorporated. The effect of latent heat of fusion and convect...

High-flux, high-repetition-rate neutron sources are of interest in studying neutron-induced damage processes materials relevant to fusion, ultimately guiding designs for future fusion reactors. Existing and upcoming petawatt laser systems show great potential fulfill this need. Here, we present a platform producing laser-driven beams based on cryogenic liquid jet target an adaptable stacked lit...

This paper describes the detection of moving obstacles using laser radar in road environments. This application is designed to be implemented in further research on data fusion technologies. The developed application uses only a laser radar which provides information to sort objects according to their shape and movement. The subsequent detection and classification provide higher level tracking.