Abstract

Optical coatings are a crucial part of the pulse trapping and extraction in the NIF multipass amplifiers. Coatings also steer the 192 beams from four linear arrays to four converging cones entering the target chamber. There are a total of 1600 physical vapor deposited coatings on NIF consisting of 576 mirrors within the multipass cavity, 192 polarizers that work in tandem with a Pockels cell to create an optical switch, and 832 transport mirrors. These optics are of sufficient size so that they are not aperture-limiting for the 40-cm × 40 cm beams over an incident range of 0 to 56.4 degrees. These coatings must withstand laser fluences up to 25 J/cm² at 1053 nm (1ω) and 3-ns pulse length and are the 1m fluence-limiting component on NIF. The coatings must have a minimal impact on the beam wavefront and phase to maintain beam focusability, minimize scattered loss, and minimize nonlinear damage mechanisms. This is achieved by specifications ranging from <50 MPa coating stress, <1% coating nonuniformity, <4Å RMS surface roughness, and a PSD specification to control the amplitude of periodic spatial frequencies. Finally, the primary mission of optical coatings is efficient beam steering so reflection and transmission losses are specified as R>99.5% and >99% for mirrors and polarizers, respectively, and T>98% for polarizers.

© 2001 Optical Society of America