Frequency converter development for the National Ignition Facility

The design of the NIF incorporates a type I/type II third harmonic generator to convert the 1.053-micrometers fundamental wavelength of the laser amplifier to a wavelength of 0.351 micrometers for target irradiation. To understand and control the tolerances in the converter design, we have developed a comprehensive error budget that accounts for effects that are known to influence conversion efficiency, including variations in amplitude and phase of the incident laser pulse, temporal bandwidth of the incident laser pulse, crystal surface figure and bulk non-uniformities, angular alignment errors, Fresnel losses, polarization errors and crystal temperature variations. The error budget provides specifications for the detailed design of the NIF final optics assembly and the fabrication of optical components. Validation is accomplished through both modeling and measurement, including full-scale Beamlet tests of a 37-cm aperture frequency converter in a NIF prototype final optics cell. The prototype cell incorporates full-perimeter clamping to support the crystals, and resides in a vacuum environment as per the NIF design.