The Preliminary Design Of The Optical Thomson Scattering Diagnostic For The National Ignition Facility

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a 192 laser beam facility designed to support the Stockpile Stewardship, High Energy Density and Inertial Confinement Fusion programs. We report on the preliminary design of an Optical Thomson Scattering (OTS) diagnostic that has the potential to transform the community's understanding of NIF hohlraum physics by providing first principle, local, time-resolved measurements of under-dense plasma conditions. The system design allows operation with different probe laser wavelengths by manual selection of the appropriate beamsplitter and gratings before the shot. A deep-UV probe beam (lambda(0) between 185-215 nm) will optimally collect Thomson scattered light from plasma densities of 5 x 10(20) electrons/cm(3) while a 3 omega probe will optimally collect Thomson scattered light from plasma densities of 1 x 10(19) electrons/cm(3). We report the phase I design of a two phase design strategy. Phase I includes the OTS recording system to measure background levels at NIF and phase II will include the integration of a probe laser.