Big Lasers in Inertial Confinement Fusion 

The Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), located at the University of Rochester in upstate NY, houses the largest lasers in academia world wide - the OMEGA 60 beam laser, and the OMEGA-EP laser. The OMEGA laser is designed to conduct Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) and High Energy Density Physics (HEDP) experiments delivering 30kJ of UV energy on target. The EP laser delivers peta-watt powers, and up to 5kJ of UV energy in a single beam. The talk will describe engineering and physics challenges in scaling laser energies to levels that result in complex non-linear effects, and catastrophic damage to optics, all the while maintaining beam quality and uniformity.