부산대학교 도서관

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) requires that pulses from each of the 192 laser beams be positioned on target with an accuracy of 50 {micro}m rms. Beam quality must be sufficient to focus a total of 1.8 MJ of 0.351-{micro}m light into a 600-{micro}m-diameter volume. An optimally flat beam wavefront can achieve this pointing and focusing accuracy. The control system corrects wavefront aberrations by performing closed-loop compensation during laser alignment to correct for gas density variations. Static compensation of flashlamp-induced thermal distortion is established just prior to the laser shot. The control system compensates each laser beam at 10 Hz by measuring the wavefront with a 77-lenslet Hartmann sensor and applying corrections with a 39-actuator deformable mirror. The distributed architecture utilizes SPARC AXi computers running Solaris to perform real-time image processing of sensor data and PowerPC-based computers running VxWorks to compute mirror commands. A single pair of SPARC and PowerPC processors accomplishes wavefront control for a group of eight beams. The software design uses proven adaptive optic control algorithms that are implemented in a multi-tasking environment to economically control the beam wavefronts in parallel. Prototype tests have achieved a closed-loop residual error of 0.03 waves rms. aberrations, the spot size requirement and goal could not be met without a wavefront control system.